


like you for always

by curiouslyfic



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Avengers child rearing, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Canonical Character Death, Clint Barton needs a sitter, Gen, M/M, Nanny!Dummy, Science Bros, enough self doubt to fell a city, no nesting jokes please, there is a baby in that canister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 03:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslyfic/pseuds/curiouslyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Phil's supposed to raise the kid, Clint tries not to fail too hard, and the science bros pitch in. Who needs a village when you've got the Avengers? </p><p>Features: Clint Barton parenting; a baby in a canister; Hydra lab experiments; Coulson being fierce; science bros and Star Wars jokes; Master Assassin Twister; swinging in a Snugli; a toddler!Natasha clone in a Boo suit; and Nanny!Dummy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by kinky_kneazle and crazyparakiss, without whom this story would not exist. Based on [this](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/7940.html?thread=14981124#t14981124) prompt on the Avenger-kink meme.
> 
> Written for the 2012 Marvel Big Bang, with fabulous art and wonderful mixes by Sullacat [here](http://sullacat.livejournal.com/146728.html). 
> 
> Title from Robert Munsch's Love You Forever. 
> 
> Spoiler warnings available in the notes at the end.

Clint’s seen Phil Coulson a thousand ways, learned to read through that mild civility to see the depth behind it, but he’s never seen Phil look as pissed as he does in the Hydra lab. 

Clint doesn’t get it at first; Clint’s still scanning the room for possible targets and Clint’s not the one looking up whatever Hydra’s been working on in here. As far as Clint knows, it’s all just one more attempt to grow Red Skull a new face. 

But it can’t be, because Phil Coulson is furious, homicidal and fully capable of following through on the threat. Clint wraps up his target search and heads over, touches Phil’s elbow carefully as he moves in to read over Phil’s shoulder. 

Then Clint’s raging, too, just as bone-deep furious, just as helpless to take it out on the assholes who deserve it. 

Genetic experiments. They’ve been fucking _breeding_. And if Subject 271 is who Clint thinks it is, he’s only too happy to hold the people responsible still while Phil takes them apart, cell by fucking cell. 

“Natasha,” Clint murmurs, so quiet his mouth barely moves. 

Phil’s nod is just as soft. “It looks like they had three potentially viable as of two days ago.” 

Clint tenses; they haven’t seen any children in the lab so far, haven’t seen any sign this is what Hydra’s been doing. “We’ll find them.” 

Phil looks at Clint then with a determination that makes his do-your-paperwork face look both patient and pleasant. “Of course we will. We’re not letting Hydra grow itself Natasha clones.” 

“They didn’t know we were coming,” Clint says, already running through what he’s seen of the lab they’ve just taken, the Hydra facility SHIELD invaded, guns blazing. “Think they had time to pack?” 

Instead of answering him, Phil gets on his earpiece and starts reorganizing the search priorities.

::

When they find the right lab it’s maybe the worst thing Clint’s ever seen, dead scientists and Hydra minions by the door, equipment in complete disarray, broken canisters leaking fluid across the floor and canister contents Clint can’t let himself acknowledge.

Even master assassins have their fucking limits and this, all of it, is nightmare fuel. Instead, he focuses on the trio of canisters that have caught Phil’s attention, the ones at the far side of the room. Two of them are still in relatively good shape, only one obviously damaged beyond repair, but none of them have emerged completely unscathed. 

He touches the top of the one with the blinking red light, finds himself looking at a tiny human curled into the fetal position, suspended in fluid and maybe — fuck, he _hopes_ — sleeping. 

She doesn’t look like Natasha. She doesn’t look like anyone Clint knows. Phil’s barking out orders about how he wants the other canister handled, threatening in his quiet, ruthless way anyone who gets this wrong. Figures Phil’s already protective of her; Clint is, too, but for Phil, it’s personal. 

People hurting Phil’s agents always is. 

“I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to step away,” someone says, probably someone well-intentioned, and Clint ignores it because fuck no, he doesn’t. 

“How is she, Barton?” Phil asks, steady and grim. 

Clint hears someone say something about it not looking promising, something else about intermittent power, and he knows what that should mean but she…Her foot’s moving. 

She is _moving_. Clearly, fuck intermittent power. Clint’s fingers drift down to the glass. He taps once, two fingers moving as gently as they can; he doesn’t want to scare her or anything, he just wants to let her know she’s not alone anymore. 

Phil’s in beside him now, crouching to investigate, touching the thick glass of the canister as though he can’t help himself, either. 

She’s so small. Clint has no clue how old she is, whether she’s even at a stage where they can take her out of her canister-uterus without hurting her themselves. 

“If I go back with her, can you handle things here?” Phil doesn’t look up when he asks. Clint thinks maybe Phil can’t stop staring, either. 

“You got some way to do that without cutting off her power supply?” 

Phil laughs, blunt and humorless. “I thought I’d just unplug her and hope for the best.” 

Clint thinks about that for a second, bobs his head in reluctant agreement. “If she’s any part Natasha, you’ll get it.” 

Phil does look up at him then, an expression Clint’s never really seen before on his face. It looks honest and earnest, not far off how he’d looked explaining how he’d come to work for SHIELD that time they’d gotten drunk in Denver, but without the nostalgia or pride. Clint has no fucking clue what it is or what exactly is running through Phil’s head right now, but he knows and trusts Phil’s resolve. 

Then Phil’s on his earpiece confirming new intel, giving Clint implicit orders as he does, and Clint’s heading off to go play senior agent with the Hydra minions they’ve just cornered, and as he gets there, he has to shove everything else aside so he can focus on his mission.

::

The next time Clint sees them, there’s only one viable canister left. Clint’s afraid to ask which one; he didn’t even see the kid in the other canister but he feels…Well. He’s actually _seen_ the one, he’s got a vested interest here.

Phil is not the fuck happy about the situation, though, and Clint gets why he wouldn’t be, so Clint very carefully does not ask. 

“So what’s the plan now, chief?” He leans in, presses their shoulders together in solidarity. “Wreak a little vengeance? Kick a little ass? I’m up to date on my paperwork, I think, so if you’re up for a little black bag wet work while Nat’s in California, I’m game.” 

Phil blinks, shakes his head. “I need you on your best behavior, Barton.” The breath Phil draws sounds steadying; Clint can’t help wondering why he needs it. “It is critical that I appear both competent and capable for the foreseeable future.” 

“Mission critical?” Clint asks automatically but he doesn’t really have to; Phil Coulson is a model of efficient proficiency, ideally suited in both skill sets and temperament to be the field handler for SHIELD’s most notorious agents. There is absolutely no way there’s anyone questioning Phil’s ability to get his job done. 

Phil nods and blows out a breath. “I’m taking her home with me when she gets out of that thing. I’m…I’ve already cleared it with Director Fury.” 

Oh, to have been a hawk in the vents for that conversation. It’s Clint’s turn to blow out a breath, to feel less steady than he thinks he should. 

“Any idea when that’s going to be?” If Phil’s taking any sort of parental leave, or even just rearranging his assignment so he’s in the field less, things are going to change around SHIELD in a pretty big way. It’s not even that Clint’s going to have to break in a new handler now, it’s that Clint and Phil and Natasha make a pretty solid team. So Clint knows Phil’s tensing up, even thinks he knows why, and Clint has to push all that shit aside to deal with the actual issue at hand. “Just, you know, wondering when I should schedule helping you put the kid’s room together.” 

“I’m told she’ll be here for a while still. For observation.” 

And it takes Clint longer than it should — for reasons he refuses to acknowledge — to actually get out a congratulations, but when he does, he can honestly say he means it. 

Probably no one better equipped in the world to raise a little Natasha.

::

It comes up a few times after that, mostly because Phil has pictures in New Mexico and the whole thing’s so fucking classified, Clint’s the only person in the state Phil can show, and for all Clint’s got his reasons not to trust grown men near helpless infants, he figures Phil’s probably going to be the exception to that rule.

Assuming one exists. Clint’s heard about happy childhoods and decent, loving parents but honestly, it’s always seemed like a total fairy tale to him. 

If anyone could pull it off, though, it’s probably Phil. 

So Clint hears Phil out while he’s debating baby names and Clint lets Phil talk out how he’s going to manage day care once he’s off parental leave and while Clint’s in town once on an I’m-bored-stupid-get-me-off-base run, Clint picks up a goofy looking stuffed animal from one of the stores. Phil’s talking through a point of procedure with a pair of junior agents obviously nursing professional crushes; Clint tosses the stuffed thing at Phil’s chest and heads for his quarters without a word. 

Phil tracks him down later, stuffed thing in hand. “Want to explain this?” 

Clint shrugs. “For the separation anxiety, Dad.” 

Phil’s mouth tugs up in a corner. Clint gets that look a lot. “You couldn’t give it to me privately?” 

Clint knows Phil Coulson laughing when he sees it, whether Phil’s laughing out loud or not. “Nah. This way, they’ll think we’re dating again.” 

“You’re impossible,” Phil says, but he’s laughing privately, grinning all crooked and adorable, and Clint figures that’s $10 well spent, even if the kid never actually sees the thing. 

“Hey, I’m just making sure little Clintonia has something to cuddle while her dad’s off battling acquisition forms.” 

And from there, it all turns into the baby names bicker again, and Clint doesn’t mind having that conversation now that he’s learned to say Clintonia with a straight face and shit.

::

Not that Clint needs another reason to want to put an arrow through Loki’s eye socket or anything, but Phil doesn’t even get to bring her home.

Clint finds the stuffed thing in Phil’s apartment, a patch-eyed puppy with really soft ears sitting on Phil’s dresser keeping watch over the shit Phil left behind. It’s so incongruously _Phil_ , ruthless efficiency and rare shows of sentimentality, and for a moment, Clint’s as violently, viciously pissed about the whole thing as he remembers being in that Hydra lab. 

Then Director Fury tells him Phil’s left Clint in charge of the kid.

::

“I am actually a really bad choice for this, sir,” Clint says, hands up as though he can ward the news off.

Director Fury looks almost pitying. Or, well, as close as he gets. “You’re who we’ve got.” 

“So what’s Plan B?” 

“You,” Director Fury says bluntly. “Coulson was Plan A. You don’t want to know Plan C.” 

Clint laughs, feels hysterical. “You wouldn’t hurt her, sir.” 

Director Fury sighs like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders again. Which, well, maybe he does, but Clint only really cares about this one little aspect right now and he doesn’t think that’s unreasonable of him. “Barton, you’re one of my best agents and I realize these aren’t the easiest of circumstances. For anyone. So let me break it down for you: Agent Coulson was in charge of that little girl’s paper trail, a task he was only _partially_ finished when Loki arrived. As it stands now, the only two people on this planet with any kind of legal claim to the kid are yourself, as per Agent Coulson’s will, or Agent Romanov. Now, I’m willing to make exceptions given the delicacy of this case but I am not running a day care. If you won’t take her, I see no choice but to carry on as we have been until such time as Agent Romanov opts in.” 

Clint knows all those words, really he does, but it takes a moment to weed through them for the things Fury’s not saying. “You’re going to leave her in the lab.” Fuck, now Clint feels sick. 

“I’m not running a day care,” Director Fury repeats. It says something that he’s willing to do it without annoyance. 

“Nat’s not going to take her. Christ, Nat’s going to flip.” As far as Clint knows, Natasha hasn’t been read in yet, doesn’t even know what’s going on. “You ordering me to take her, sir?” 

Director Fury watches him for a long moment. “Do I need to?” 

Clint’s whole life changes when he shakes his head.

::

He’ll be honest, there’s still a part of him that expects to find Phil hanging out in SHIELD medical, bandaged and healing, hovering by her canister expectantly, ready to launch into the debate over baby names again.

::

Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing Clint would take to the roof, because it’s made for a perch up where no one can see him, up where the world is all very far away. He can’t with this one, though, because she’s alone in the lab if he does, and he knows the SHIELD medical science staff probably mean well but she’s there as an experiment to reverse engineer.

Clint’s all she’s got now, the only person left breathing more concerned about the kid she is now, the person she’ll be, than any of the fancy science shit Hydra used to make her. 

Hiding out on his roof would just plain be cowardice. For Phil’s kid — his own now, Christ — Clint can brave the whispers and looks and shit he knows he’ll get for showing his face around the Loki-wounded. 

She’s bigger now, nearly the size of her canister and moving constantly, still curled up tight but kicking out, too, turning restlessly. 

“Hey, kiddo,” he says as he slumps into the chair her medical staff’s probably set up for Phil’s visits, reaching out to touch her canister glass again. “So I have some bad news and some worse news for you. You care where I start?” He waits a beat, watches her, half-expects some sort of response. Jesus, Clint’s not even sure she can hear yet, let alone process what she’s saying and sort out some form of non-verbal communication for him; Clint needs to read every baby book ever written, like yesterday. 

Clint settles in for his visit, leans back in his chair and props an ankle over his knee. “Okay, let’s start with the really shit—dammit. Darn. Sorry. The, uh, the really _sucky_ part, I mean.” Great. Clint’s been here fifteen seconds and he’s already being horrible with children. What the hell had Phil been thinking? Christ. “Look. Some really bad sh— _stuff_ went down a little while ago and your dad was trying to handle it to, like, save the world, I guess, and he got hurt. Really badly…” Clint shuts his eyes, has to brace himself to admit it out loud and everything. This is no time for getting caught up in his own guilt, Phil’s kid needs him, but Clint’s still got so much tangled up in the Loki thing he hasn’t unraveled, so it’s messy. 

Clint clears his throat. Forces his eyes open, because the very least he can do is look at her when he tells her. It helps a little that she probably won’t understand, but it only helps a little. “He’s dead, baby. He can’t come see you anymore. I know he’d be here if he could, he was really looking forward to meeting you without your, you know, canister thing, but that’s how it goes around here sometimes, I guess. Bad sh—stuff happens to really good people. So, uh, you’re coming home with me? I know, I don’t know what he was thinking either, but your dad asked me to look out for you so, you know, I will. I just…” He trails off, self-conscious. Lowers his voice to confess somewhere it probably won’t come back to haunt him. 

“I don’t really know what I’m doing here, okay? I mean, I’ll try and I’m not _completely_ clueless, I’m usually good with a bit of intel and a little direction, I’m not…” Nope, can’t quite say that, either. “I probably won’t suck as much as my dad, and if I do, you’ve got a ton of people who’ll take me down for it, okay? So you’re, you know, safe. I…I’m not a drinker, I don’t get off on hitting, I know sweet fuck all about little girls or, like, babies in general, but it’s the Age of Google and I know some really, really smart people, so probably I won’t be a _total_ disaster.” 

She’s…her foot’s moving again. Not lots or anything, just bobbing a little, but it hits him like it did in the Hydra lab, proof she’s alive and _sentient_ , at least enough for automatic reflexes. 

Jesus Christ, there is a _kid_ in that canister. A tiny human. How does something this obvious keep sinking in like this, keep feeling too massive a thought to hold on to? 

There is _Phil_ ’s kid in that canister and now she’s Clint’s responsibility and when he thinks about it, he probably hasn’t been all that reassuring. 

“You want anything?” he asks and feels ridiculous, because what’s he going to do? Bring her a sandwich? Jesus. “You okay in there? You need anything? Is it warm enough? You hungry? I’d be fucking hungry.” Clint has to force himself to chill the fuck out. Can’t help laughing hopelessly at himself, because seriously, this is his first act of parenthood? Useless panic? Excellent, he’s off to a _fabulous_ start. 

He forces himself to take another breath, then another, forces himself to be calming the way he thinks Phil would have been. 

“So, kiddo, if we’re going to do this thing, we should probably see about getting you a name, huh?” That feels righter, _better_ , but he still sneaks a look around them, checks that they aren’t being observed by anyone the way he always did with Phil. “You have any thoughts on Clintonia?”

::

Clint sticks it out in the bowels of the facility, lurking in her medical science lab, watching the bio-scientists mutter excitedly and try to _do things_ to her canister. There’s no room in this lab for distance, not one that keeps him in growling range, and for all Director Fury’s said the bio-scientists have free range to collect their data — they know way more about the science of her than Clint figures he ever will — Clint is not watching a _prisoner_ or _war criminal_ or anything.

They don’t get to hurt her, he tells himself repeatedly, and the one time he says it aloud, one of the scientists gets all inspired wondering if she has pain receptors yet. 

Director Fury sends a memo reminding Clint officially that no, he’s still not allowed to shoot any of the scientists, but Clint can read between the lines. If Fury thought Clint was seriously screwing up, he’d have said so in person. 

Clint already knows her middle name is going to be Nicole. That when she’s out of her canister, he’s going to teach her to call Fury Grandpa. Knows from one of those conversations in New Mexico that Phil would approve and frankly, that’s the best template he’s got for figuring out this parenting thing. 

Clint reads a lot when the science team isn’t doing anything stupid, just bunkers down with all the information he can find and does what he can to absorb it, sort out some kind of strategy. She’ll be real small and really, really needy for a while, pretty much a regular baby with, like, maybe some medical problems Clint doesn’t even know about yet, and he thinks it’s helpful that so much of the first year stuff gets written as straight-up instructions. 

He doesn’t know yet how to change a diaper but, well, he will. 

The science team jokes sometimes about getting him a doll to practice on, but he can tell they don’t really expect _him_ to be the one doing it. 

But who the hell else is there _now_?

::

“Legolas!” he hears as he’s grilling a scientist for some sort of usable ETA for when she’s getting out of her canister — hey, apparently he has a life to plan — and Clint flinches, can’t help tensing at the sound of Tony Stark’s voice.

“Robocop,” Clint says back, turning to put himself between Stark and her canister, to block Stark’s view and maybe, _maybe_ herd Stark back out of the lab entirely. Then Clint blinks, because Stark is not alone. “Dr. Banner.” 

“This where you’ve been hiding?” Stark asks, totally oblivious to Clint’s attempt to run him off. “Tesseract, take two?” 

“Uh, no, not exactly. Look, can we take this to the hall or something? I’m pretty sure you don’t have clearance to be in here.” 

The way Stark looks at him says that Tony Stark needs no clearance to be anywhere he wants. Clint figures this is why Natasha pulled that assignment; Stark’s the sort of guy who’d drive Clint to increasingly hostile acts of prankery just to get that smug self-satisfaction off his face. 

The medical scientists all fucking flee. Clint wants to call them all back but fuck it, what could they possibly contribute? Hell, they’d probably take advantage of Clint’s split attention to do weird shit to the kid again. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Banner says, soft and actually apologetic. “We were just on our way to lunch and Tony wanted to go exploring.” 

Clint nods at Banner, simple acknowledgement, but never really takes his eyes off Stark, who’s gone wandering over to the many-buttoned terminal the medical scientists like to play with while they’re babbling things about optimal tissue oxidation or some shit. 

While they’re treating his kid like she’s a damned canister. 

Stark’s talking again, mentioning Dr. Selvig and shawarma and how everyone disappeared so quickly afterwards. Clint doesn’t think Stark means anything by it but Banner looks uncomfortable, so very awkward and yet still so very appealing. Somehow, Banner makes socially dysfunctional look _good_ , which makes it a fucking tragedy Clint won’t have more time with the guy to enjoy it. Clint has a thing for the adorably awkward ones and at this rate, Banner’s going to be back out of his life before Clint’s even sure he’s not a wishful thinking ping. 

Then Stark’s actually _touching_ the many-buttoned terminal and, well, Clint’s not having that. 

“Stand down,” he snaps, moving in on Stark fast to clear his hands away before he does anything like, fuck, Clint doesn’t even know. Just, no one gets to touch that unless they know what they’re doing; Clint is not risking the kid to appease Stark’s curiosity. 

Stark looks frankly amused. “I touch a nerve, Robin Hood?” Then, dark and knowing, Stark says, “Is it _called_ Phase Three or just Phase Two-point-Five, the shit-we-lost-the-Tesseract version?” 

“What?” 

But Stark’s already narrowing his eyes, turning crazy science genius on him, and Stark doesn’t even really glance back at the terminal before he decides — aloud, Christ — that “Fury’s obviously back on weapons.” When Stark says, “Biological ones? Interesting choice,” Clint feels sharp and cold and hostile with panic. 

Clint doesn’t panic. _Ever_. That’s part of his charm, part of why he gets away with as much as he does, because no matter how cowboy he gets on an assignment, he still keeps a cool head about it when he’s in a crunch. 

It feels now like all he’s done is panic since Fury called him in for that conversation. It is not a great feeling, but he can’t help himself. 

“She is not a weapon,” Clint says, low and grim. That’s a little too close to fucking Hydra, that thought. 

He doesn’t realize what he’s given away until Stark’s face lights. “She?” 

Clint squares himself off, does his best to stare Stark down, silent and unyielding. 

“Should something over there be moving?” Banner asks, more mildly curious than anything else. 

“In ten minutes, JARVIS is going to tell me everything I want to know,” Stark points out, but it’s a blind shot, blatant bullshit. 

“I think you should go now,” Clint says, in a tone his previous assignments would recognize as unpleasant. Clint tips his head at Banner again, refuses to look away from Stark. “Good seeing you again, Doc. Enjoy your lunch.” 

“Leave already?” Stark baits. “But we just got here.” Stark’s put-upon pout sets Clint’s teeth on edge. “What’s over there, Agent Barton? Is it alien?”

Clint can’t tell for sure or anything but he’s pretty sure he blanches. He can take the stares and hostility from SHIELD agents who don’t have the clearance to know what really happened in the whole Loki debacle but it’s different with the other Avengers; they all knew just enough about it to do Clint serious damage. 

“I can and will remove you.” 

Stark turns his attention back to the terminal, manic as ever, taking in more on the screen that Clint probably ever could. “I’m no DNA expert but it seems to me that’s not a virus.” Tony points at something Clint honestly thought was some kind of on-off chart. “Banner, get your pretty eyes over here, tell me what that looks like to you.” 

“No,” Clint says, firm and sharp, and he’s stepping in to physically remove Stark from the lab entirely when Banner says, “Oh my God.” 

Clint’s not even sure what they’re looking at but he can tell by their faces that it isn’t going over well. Fabulous. Now he’ll have to explain to Fury why he killed Stark. 

“That’s human DNA,” Banner says, watching Clint expectantly. 

“With a little something extra,” Stark agrees. “Dr. Banner?” 

Banner’s frowning, eyebrows knit unhappily. “If I had to guess? I’d say that looks like the sort of genetic mutation I’d expect to see with the Super Soldier Serum. Not an exact match to Erskine’s original but closer than I ever got with mine.” 

“Growing your own agent upgrades, Barton?” 

Dammit, where the hell are the medical scientists when Clint needs them. He has no clue how to even approach Stark’s question and Banner’s clearly going to see right through him if Clint lies. 

So fuck it, Banner and Stark already know enough to be a pain in the ass and Fury probably won’t let Clint kill either of them; this feels distinctly like a moment Clint needs to control. 

So he does. Looks them both over to assess them as security risks to the kid and figures his best chance here is to just give a little. 

“This doesn’t leave this room,” he says, solemn as hell. Banner looks baffled but agreeably so, not inclined to be stubborn just for the sake of it, but Stark’s _too_ agreeable when he nods. Clint can’t trust it, not after what he’s seen in Stark’s files. “Recording devices off. I mean it, Stark. I shouldn’t even be telling you this but Fury made it need-to-know and since you both look ready to run off half-cocked — which is fucking _dangerous_ , so I will not take it well — I figure _maybe_ that won’t happen if you know what you’ll be fucking up. Am I wrong?” 

He waits for an answer. Banner takes a moment before he nods, nearly lost in thought. Stark, on the other hand, looks restlessly intrigued. Clint’s done enough interrogating in his time — giving and receiving, thanks — to know how useful silence can be. 

It takes a long, stubborn moment before Stark nods, too, once vaguely as he gets his phone out and fiddles. He flashes Clint the powered-down screen before he slips it back into his pocket and waves a restless hand. 

Clint has no idea how Tony Stark lives with his own perpetual impatience. 

“I’m going to preface this by saying this was Agent Coulson’s last assignment before the Clusterfuck, one with considerable personal significance. It was, I’m told, basically his dying wish that I take it over. So when I say I will fucking end you if you so much as think about endangering this mission, well, I will fucking end you. Master assassin,” he says, and he smiles, ruthless and sharp. “You’d be a challenge, doc, but I like my odds.” 

Stark looks intensely curious now, almost inhuman in it. Banner just looks…sort of flattered? 

Clint sighs and carries on. “We’re not growing anything. Hydra was. We just…couldn’t leave her there to die when we’d raided the lab.” 

“Leave who?” Banner asks before Stark can do more than make a reactionary face. 

Clint digs his fingernails into his palms, wonders why this feels so alarming and so easy simultaneously, like betting the house on a sure thing and waiting for the draw. “Come on. Let’s meet Phillipa.”

::

“When you say ‘assignment’…” Stark starts, looking from Clint to the kid and back like he can’t figure out where to focus.

“Phil was going to raise her.” Clint forces a small shrug, pushes aside the ache of it again. “Obviously that’s out of the question now, so I’ve been assigned to step in.” He eyes them both as a thought occurs to him. “Don’t suppose either of you can tell me how old she is?” 

Stark ignores the question. Banner shakes his head. “Sorry, no. Not without her growth rate. If there’s Super Soldier Serum, she’s probably not following standard development patterns.” 

“But she’s healthy?” 

Banner rubs his neck, actually apparently considering the question. Clint’s impressed; the medical scientists tend to brush Clint off or outright avoid him. “Hard to say. I don’t exactly know what’s normal for her, especially with the serum in her. Don’t see anything to say she isn’t, though, if that helps?” 

“Should her power couplings be this corroded?” Stark asks, poking at her canister, and it’s all Clint can do not to smack Stark’s hands away again. 

“Tony, don’t touch that,” Banner scolds gently. “I’m sure Agent Barton doesn’t want us playing with his little girl.” 

And that’s just…wow, that’s an unexpected shot to the chest, someone else acknowledging she’s a tiny person and not a fucking science experiment, and it’s coming from _Banner_ , who doesn’t even know Clint and who probably never really knew Phil. 

Stark hisses “I won’t _hurt_ her” and Banner shoots him a look so very much like Phil’s, comfortably familiar resignation, fond despite the skepticism. “Seriously, who is maintaining this thing? And do they know this isn’t Radio Shack?” 

Then Stark is doing something, Stark is _touching_ and _meddling_ and Clint is over in a shot; the only thing stopping him from throwing a punch is Banner’s hand on his chest. “Tony,” Banner warns, and Clint’s trying to get away, trying to get to her because Stark is fucking with a metal plate and a six-pack of little metal knobs, Stark is poking with some implement he’s pulled out of nowhere, Tony Stark is a dead man. 

The sound of metal scraping metal makes Clint’s fillings twinge. “Back away, asshole,” Clint says and he’s growling, trying to throw Banner off, but Banner’s got him in a surprisingly solid grip. 

The whole thing doesn’t take more than a few seconds before Stark’s pulling away, satisfied. 

Her little red light winks out. 

“Banner, let go of me,” is all Clint can say, because he’s not even sure he can promise to let Banner walk. 

Stark blinks up at him, takes the scene in with bemusement. The bastard doesn’t even have the sense to look remorseful. 

“Relax, Momma Bear. I just cleaned off her conduits. She’ll be fine.” 

“Banner, let _go_.” 

This time when Clint shoves, he gets himself free. Banner looks stricken. Stark holds up his hands. Clint doesn’t even want to think about what must be on his face now but _her light is off_ , there are dead men in this room who don’t seem to know it yet. 

“Clint, I’m so sorry,” Banner says faintly, sounds just as gutted as Clint thinks he should feel, and Clint is advancing slowly on Stark, debating the merits of a quick, fatal strike or something extensive and painful. 

The click and the hum don’t really register but the sharp, upbeat whine definitely does. Clint can’t help but look over at her canister again and what he sees drains him, leaves him weak-kneed with relief. 

Her little red blinking light is now a solid green. 

“Tony, what—” Banner starts and Clint hears “Routine maintenance” in Stark’s cocky drawl but he can’t process it yet, he needs to know she’s okay. 

Clint has had a fuckload of training and more than enough experience with keeping shit off his face, smothering himself and his reactions for the mission. That all goes to shit. He sinks into Phil’s chair — his chair now, fuck, he’s probably got more hours in it by now — and covers his mouth with his hand, reaches out to touch the glass of her canister again so maybe she’ll still know he’s there. 

“You okay, baby? You’re good, right?” _Come on, sweetheart, move for me_ , he thinks, but he can’t say it in case she doesn’t. “I’m going to kick Stark’s ass in a minute, promise, but you gotta let me know what I’m kicking it for.” 

This time, it’s her fingers curling, flexing like a wave. She turns a little inside her canister, which the medical scientists tell him is just a reflex but fuck them, she’s looking for him, Clint fucking knows she is, and when he laughs, he sounds broken even to himself. 

“Jesus Christ. There’s my girl.” Fuck, this kid is going to kill him, he’s going to have a goddamned heart attack before she’s even out of her canister. “Stark, what did I say about endangering this mission?” 

Banner’s quiet and worried, silent and keeping his distance but watching both of them like he’s desperate to help somehow. Clint figures he’s still got his assassin on, probably won’t shake it for a while yet. Stark looks…well, _stark_. Clint actually wants to call it remorseful, maybe even apologetic. Stark looks shaken, anyway, as though it’s only now occurring to him fucking with that canister might not have been a brilliant move. 

Then Stark pulls his shit together, sort of, and Clint thinks it’s not much more than a facade. “You want to talk about endangering your mission, Barton, you might want to start with the incompetents who couldn’t even manage routine maintenance to that thing. Unless the plan was to run your baby baker at half-power indefinitely, in which case, congratulations, you had that down without a hitch.” 

And maybe it’s how annoyed Stark looks, how very ruffled he seems and how much smoother the canister’s humming now, but something about the whole mess makes Clint reconsider his intel in light of what he’s seen and heard from the medical science team. 

“You fixed her, though, right?” Clint is oh so careful with his tone, because Fury’s said he can’t shoot the science team in her lab but that doesn’t mean Clint can’t get creative in her defense. 

Stark’s just as careful with his nod. 

Clint swears viciously in three different languages. Doesn’t really care which ones as long as he steers clear of English and Russian. It’s cathartic. When he’s chilled the fuck out, he forces himself to breathe deep, looks between them intently. “You two got any other routine maintenance in mind? Because clearly SHIELD’s fucking me over here, they’re all too damned busy trying to study her, running fucking _experiments_ —” He can’t help but spit the word. 

He’s come to hate it lately. It gets tossed around as the rationale behind some pretty inhumane shit. 

“Experiments why?” Stark asks, but he sounds like he’s got a few computers in his head working options, piecing shit together. 

“She’s a clone,” Banner says simply, a statement of fact without judgment. “Of who? If you don’t mind my asking?” 

Clint really didn’t mean to ever say it but, well, Banner’s face is soft and warm, the friendliest Clint’s seen in a long time, and the guy just _looks_ understanding. When he’s not the Hulk, he’s a mild-mannered genius according to his file and when he _is_ the Hulk, he does shit like helping bring down the Chitauri. That buys him a lot of leeway right now, even for someone as trust adverse as Clint. 

“Natasha.” 

The name hangs between the three of them in the silence that follows. 

Stark breaks it with a derisive sniff. “That’s going to grow up to be Agent Romanov and they’re pissing her off already? I may have given Fury too much credit.” 

Clint snorts back. “It’s not him. This is my op, remember? Not that I have any clue what I’m doing.” He snorts again, tries to laugh at himself and manages a miserable sound. “Master assassin, dead shot, but I’m not a scientist. So you tell me, what else does she need?” 

Stark looks at Banner. Banner looks back. There’s a short, complicated conversation there, nothing but looks, raised brows and slightly tilted heads. Then Banner nods encouragingly, looks so hopeful, and Stark just looks resolved. 

“I think we can do you one better,” Stark says carefully. “Where are you staying?”

::

Four days later, Clint's officially a resident of New York City's shiniest address. He has no fucking clue how this is his life but hey, at least the kid gets her own lab space on the best R&D floor. 


	2. Chapter 2

Stark does a lot of unhappy muttering when he takes over her maintenance, first about SHIELD’s total ineptitude, then about Hydra’s general idiocy, and Clint sticks to the background to watch the man work because he still can’t quite shake that moment of panic. 

Her light had been _off_. That thought’s still terrifying. Then again, apparently she’d gone months without, well, a tune-up or whatever, clearly SHIELD’s medical scientists aren’t what she needs. 

Clint can’t help thinking he’s already failing this mission and it’s only just started, and isn’t _that_ encouraging?

::

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Banner says in that way he has that makes Clint’s sure the guy’s laughing behind his hesitation. Stark’s a non-stop spectacle of manic genius and poor decision-making but Banner’s so locked down, as tightly controlled in his own way as Natasha and every bit as good at putting on a show to hide behind. Clint has a theory that Banner might actually be scarier overall, because _his_ non-threatening smile looks _genuine_.

It’s taken Clint a few days to get used to his own surface read of Banner, taken a few more beyond that to get Clint comfortable with his own responses. The way Clint remembers, Hulk didn’t have a lot of _subtle_ happening but Banner’s got a load of secrets in his pretty brown eyes. 

“You trying to get rid of me again, Doc?” Clint’s got his feet up on the edge of a workstation, got his hands tucked behind his head. 

Banner is very carefully avoiding eye contact, trying to play busy with whatever he’s doing. “No, of course not.” Funny thing is, Clint thinks Banner means it. Banner tries faking eye contact again, glances Clint’s way and _maybe_ gets as close as looking at Clint’s chest, like Clint can’t tell the difference. “I just thought you might like the chance to stretch your legs.” 

Clint arches a look at his own feet, propped up and planted. “I think I’m good there, actually.” 

Banner doesn’t hide his wince well but hell, Clint can let that slide. Bruce Banner is fascinating for oh so many reasons. It’s so _convenient_ Clint’s talked Flip’s way into her own baby canister corner in Banner’s lab. 

But hell, he figures spending time with her alone is an invitation to overshare and considering how wired the rest of Stark’s place is, the apparent autonomy of the AI’s surveillance access, Clint’s really not comfortable with that risk. 

“Get food,” Banner blurts, sliding off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. “You’ve been here as long as I have and you haven’t eaten anything all day. You’re not hungry?” 

Either Banner’s trying to mother him, which Clint cannot even consider without having to fight a smile, or Banner really is trying to run Clint off. “Am I bothering you, Doc?” 

Clearly Clint is. He’s just not sure _why_ yet, and he likes almost all the answers he considers viable possibilities. 

“Is food not something normal people do?” 

Oh, crap. Clint’s gone full-tilt into scientist baiting again. It is fucking hilarious and gratifying to wind Stark up, Clint’s learned, but doing it to Banner gets a bit like poking at puppies if Clint’s not careful. “I dunno, Doc. You tell me.” Banner looks wide-eyed and frustrated — still just _brown_ -eyed, though — so Clint throws the guy a bone. “Never exactly considered myself a model of ‘normal people’ behavior, you know?” 

It’s maybe a little mean to play it straight, pull guileless innocence while Banner’s blinking at him in the grips of his chronically tangled tongue but what the hell, Banner is adorable. Hands down Clint’s favorite scientist by far. 

“I think the best model for normal around here is probably Pepper,” Banner admits, though he makes it sound like a confession and not, well, a blatant statement of fact. 

“Might be on to something there,” Clint agrees. “I’d have said JARVIS.” 

Banner’s control slips on his guilty smile so Clint grins back, feels wickedly encouraging when Banner ducks his head back down to work again. 

“Stay as long as you’d like, Agent Barton. I don’t mind. It’s nice, actually, having someone else around.” Banner’s smile turns sweet then, almost wistful, but he blinks it off quickly, hides behind his control again. Clint wonders about that, whether Banner using his title has anything to do with it. From what Clint’s seen, the guy doesn’t have the greatest history with government agents. “I just meant that since I’m not going anywhere for a few hours at least, if you wanted to take a break or something, she wouldn’t be alone.” 

Clint considers that a moment, steals another just to watch Banner work. 

“You want something from the kitchen, _Doctor Banner_?” Clint makes a big show of Banner’s title so maybe next time, Banner won’t be so quick to use Clint’s. The way Banner looks at him then says maybe Banner knows that’s what he’s doing, maybe Banner doesn’t mind so much if it is. Clint rolls his eyes self-deprecatingly and lets a grin play over his mouth. “I mean, since apparently I’m heading that way and all.” 

“Whatever you’re having’s fine, if it’s not too much trouble.” 

And because Clint’s trying to behave himself, he makes it to the elevator before he lets himself imagine exactly what sort of trouble Banner might be.

::

Stark’s muttering unhappily and poking tools at her canister when Clint gets back, which is not exactly a welcome sight. Stark’s explained repeatedly that proper maintenance means going near her with tools and Clint gets it, he really does, but he still has issues.

Her light had been _off_. It’s still fucking terrifying and it’s been _days_. 

Banner’s seemed like a semi-responsible individual; Clint wants to know how the fuck this happened. 

“He said he got inspired downstairs,” Banner explains, shrugging slightly, which does not fill Clint with confidence. 

_Downstairs_ is where most of Stark’s explosions are. Clint hasn’t heard anything go off so far today but, well, he wouldn’t necessarily. There’s a lot of soundproofing — and what Clint imagines to be significant fireproofing — around the residential areas. 

“Something I should know about, C-3PO?” Clint slides Banner’s sandwich onto Banner’s workstation and hooks a foot around his own chair to push it into optimal Stark-menacing position. 

Stark waves a screwdriver dismissively and goes right on muttering. Clint can’t tell if Stark’s cursing SHIELD’s medical science team again or deriding Hydra. It tends to be an either/or with Stark, though Clint figures someday he’ll really get going and cover them both together. 

“I am not C-3PO,” Stark counters. “I am clearly Luke Skywalker in this scenario.” 

Something hisses on her canister; something else clangs. Stark hisses something sharp that might as well be specs on the Millennium Falcon and sucks at his finger like it stings. 

“Oh, I dunno about that,” Clint baits lazily. “Kickass pilot, ninja with a sword, extensively trained — personally, mind — in the fine art of mindfuckery by a pair of creepy old dudes? Sounds more like the Clint Barton: Behind the Music to me.” 

Banner blurts a laugh. “Did you just call Yoda creepy?” 

Clint cocks a brow at him, holds out his hands in a _what can you do_. “Prove me wrong.” 

“Okay, A) you are so very wrong, Barton, it — yes, it physically _pains_ me how wrong you are; B) whoever designed this filtration system deserves a trip to the Great Pit of Carkoon; and C) I can beat that Behind the Music, probably without violating any non-disclosure agreements.” Stark snaps and points at him but doesn’t look away from her canister. 

“I nominate JARVIS as C-3PO,” Banner volunteers, probably to keep the peace. 

Stark blows out a breath. “Yeah, I can see it.” Then Stark…touches her canister. Brushes his hand over the metal casing he’s been working on, and Clint thinks maybe it’s just Stark brushing away dust or whatever only, well, that’s not quite what’s on Stark’s face. “Right, R2? Back me up here.” 

Banner holds his hands up and shakes his head, Clint catches that in his peripheral vision, but he can’t quite make himself look away from Tony Stark touching Phillipa’s canister gently. 

Stark looks a little lost. When he glances up and finds Clint watching him, Clint expects the guy to snap back behind his defenses. Instead, Stark’s chin lifts stubbornly and he gets his genius jackass on again; Clint can see the science rant building, he swears. 

To head him off, Clint says, “Okay, so that makes me what, Han?” 

“I am not Leia,” Banner protests, and Clint’s not even thinking about it until Banner brings it up but once he has… ” _No_.” 

Okay, so Banner’s serious. Good to know. 

“Obviously,” Stark says, as though it is. Banner stares balefully. Stark looks like a kid chasing trouble, trying to charm his way out of it with his big, angelic eyes. This is not at all what Clint’s life is supposed to be now but he kind of likes that it’s what he’s got. Then Stark’s gesturing at Banner with that screwdriver again, cocky and confident and just this side of obnoxious. “Clearly you’re Chewie.” 

And that’s…Clint likes that, he really does, but he suspects he’d like it more if he could read whatever’s passing in the silent staring between Stark and Banner right now. 

Banner’s attempt at a Chewbacca roar makes Clint laugh, sure, and not just because it’s coming from such a generally quiet guy, but it doesn’t do a thing to appease Clint’s curiosity.

::

It gets peaceful in the lab after that. Clint eats his sandwich in relative silence, half-watches Banner forget about his until he puts his elbow in it accidentally, listens to Stark’s unhappy grumbling at the numbers JARVIS rattles off on command.

When Stark gets too tense, Banner cracks out another Chewie sound. He ducks his head fast just after he does it and he sneaks a look at Clint through his lashes, as though he’s not certain it’s okay, and Clint’s really tempted to throw on a little Han swagger, do his best impression of “C’mere, you big Wookie.” 

The only thing stopping him, really, is that he can’t be sure how Banner would take it. He still can’t tell for sure whether Banner’s flirting with him or whether that’s just Clint’s dick getting ideas because Clint’s getting comfortable around here. 

It’s all a little early Clint-and-Coulson, and this time, Clint needs to know this shit’s got a better ending coming before he lets himself do anything about it.

::

“God fucking dammit, who built this disaster?” Stark blurts, sheer irritation, and Clint’s bristling about it, picking the pace up so he can get back there in with her to touch her glass reassuringly, only he gets to the doorway and lo, Stark does it for him. Stark wipes his sweaty forehead with a forearm and leaves a pretty visible smear of grime, shakes his head a little and breathes as though he’s just gone ten rounds in his armor.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. If it were up to me, you’d be in the Cadillac of baby bakers, okay? Top-of-the-line, Stark prototype, no expense spared. You’d be the envy of all the other baker babies. But it’s not up to me and I can’t get you out of this thing without risking, well, _you_ , and I am not going there.” Stark makes a face at her canister, reacts with put-on affront. “Oh no, young lady. Don’t give me that look. I am _not_ stripping your matrix, I don’t care how much it would boost your efficiency. Your father would kill me, I’m pretty sure.” 

Then Stark’s shifting back, taking a breath, turning quiet and soft, gentler than Clint’s ever heard him. “I need you to be okay, kid. When this is over and you’re finally out of there, I need you to be…” The look on Stark’s face says Clint needs to either back the fuck off or let the guy know he has company but, well, he doesn’t. Natasha does better with information and so does he, better still with information he’s not supposed to have. “You can’t be another mistake I make, okay? So could you just work with me here? Because I’m _trying_ and I just can’t…I just _can’t_ give you better than this. Okay?” 

And all right, surveillance for intel is one thing but spying on Stark playing canister confessional is something else entirely, something Clint maybe doesn’t need to see. 

And later, when Banner’s back and they’re all hanging out in the lab again, when Stark starts swearing and shaking his hand like he’s stung and Clint lowers his voice to mock distance, pitches falsetto and says, “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope,” Clint thinks maybe Stark gets it.

::

Tony calls her R2 and decorates her lab, hauls out a bunch of Star Wars stuff that makes Clint gape and has Bruce making the Chewbacca roar on a semi-regular basis for days.

Clint calls her Flip, because she’s still so little, the name Clint’s picked for her is bigger than she is and hell, there’s only so much he can do with _Phillipa_. 

Bruce calls her Sweetheart and casts shy, glancing smiles her way when he thinks no one’s watching, cons JARVIS into playing lullabies for her when the lab’s dark and keeps Tony relatively quiet when he gets excited. 

And maybe none of that will convince Fury or the World Security Council that this is where Clint’s meant to work out this mission but hell, it’s more than enough to have Clint lowering his guard.

::

The night of Phil’s birthday, Clint skips the lab after dinner, needs time alone to clear his head before he spends time with his geniuses tonight. He’s not even sure why it’s affecting him, because it’s not like Clint and Phil ever did the birthday thing, but maybe it’s that this year, Clint remembers what day it is without being told, and with enough advance notice to have cooked up something really flashy to celebrate it properly.

Maybe it’s just that he can’t annoy Phil with strip-o-grams to his hotel room — and okay, Clint jokes but he wouldn’t _actually_ have sent one while they’d been in the field — or, like, brought him a really ridiculous cake or something. 

He wishes now that he’d actually done that, though, even just once. Just to say he had, in case Flip asks someday about her real dad. 

Clint has a beer and a balcony and he’s dangling his feet off the Iron Man launch, staring down at nothing and trying not to compare himself to Phil Coulson again. Phil would have known about her fucking red blinky light. Phil would have made that medical science team cry with efficiency. 

Fuck, Phil probably would have had her out of her canister already, perfectly fine and, like, happy and shit. 

Clint needs another beer. 

Clint needs Phil back, is what Clint needs, but that’s not going to happen. There are gods and monsters and magic in his life now, aliens and a billionaire and real life superheroes, but it won’t stretch that far. Phil’s nothing but a memory, a ghost for his nightmares, one more in the long string of regrets Clint’s already racked up. 

 

He needs to hear from Natasha soon. Knows he won’t if she’s busy somewhere out in the field but right at this moment, he needs to know she’s okay. She’s avoiding him and he knows it, but he also knows why, and he’s okay with it. Can’t take it personally; she’s not actually avoiding _him_. It sucks that Nat’s not here and that she won’t be heading through the doors at any moment to snap him out of this but hell, he’d probably be avoiding his own infant clone, too. 

Three beers in, he’s maudlin; two more and he’s somber, staring out at the night not seeing anything outside his own head. He doesn’t drink much, a hazard of the job Clint’s never minded, but when he does, he’s intensely aware of his own behavior at all times. Can’t quite shake the mental image of his father long enough to just let himself go. 

Clint’s pretty sure he’s earned that maudlin but the somberness just sucks. What kind of fucking birthday is this? 

“I should totally have gotten you strippers, at least once,” Clint tells no one, hefts his beer in salute and wonders exactly how many surveillance cameras are on him now, exactly how many agents Director Fury’s going to have to keep quiet if Clint says much more. 

“Uh, it’s the thought that counts, I guess?” he hears Banner say from behind him and oh, lovely, Clint totally missed someone coming at him. There’s another mistake for his mental list, then, letting down his guard. Clint’s spent too much time in the lab lately, maybe, because he’s sure without looking that Banner looks delightful back there, probably ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at Clint, watching the world through those dark lashes. 

That is not a thing Clint can think about while he’s under the influence; that cannot possibly end well. Clint’s already too attached as it is. 

Phil would know exactly what to say to shut Clint up and actually, he’d probably already have done it. 

“Something I can help you with?” 

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay out here. Not really the best weather tonight.” 

 

There’s that hesitation again, that tentativeness Banner only ever gets with Clint, and Clint knows he should avoid looking while he’s drinking but fuck it, Banner’s tentativeness looks so good on him. 

Banner’s got his hands shoved in his pockets and he’s bracing himself, looking in Clint’s general direction but quite obviously not _at_ Clint. 

So fucking weird, he thinks, but he might mean frustrating. Bruce Banner feels increasingly like a missed opportunity Clint doesn’t necessarily _have_ to miss. 

“Nah, it’s all right. Seen worse.” Clint looks Banner over again, allows himself a long look at Banner’s ducked head. “You out here just to check on me, Mom, or are you going to join me?” 

And okay, that makes Banner look up. “Didn’t want to interrupt,” Banner shrugs. “JARVIS told me about today.” 

For a moment, Clint thinks maybe he’s had some disaster-failure he’s forgotten about but no, Banner apparently means _Phil_. 

Christ. 

“Not interrupting anything,” Clint dismisses. “Trust me, the SHIELD psychologists have made it real clear that he’s not coming back.” When Banner just hovers motionless, Clint sighs and pats the balcony beside him. “Grab a seat, Doc. Pull up a little balcony.” 

Clint waits until Banner’s slipping in beside him, warm and solid and comfortable, before Clint offers him a beer. Banner looks like he’s not sure how to take the offer. 

“Thanks, but I don’t drink.” His body language screams that Banner isn’t in a position to let himself say yes. 

“Me, either, usually. It’s, uh, not the greatest idea for a guy like me.” Nat’s promised if and when Clint starts turning into his father, she’ll put him down quick and easy; Clint’s favorite op plans include anti-zombie maneuvers. Phil would have done the same; for a while there, Clint had had options about how he’d check out if he ever went rogue. Now Nat’s avoiding him and Phil’s not really a viable choice. 

Banner, though…Clint thinks if he pushed the big guy, that might get him results. Figuring that out is the only reason Clint can let himself drink tonight, because his kid’s downstairs in a canister and he needs to know he’s got people around her that can keep her safe from everything, even him. 

“Isn’t that my line?” Banner asks, blunt and surprised. 

Clint squints at him, steals a moment to get caught up again. “You mind timesharing it? We could…We…” Christ, the stars are pretty. Prettier still in Banner’s eyes, which Clint better not be mentioning out loud like an idiot, but even just seeing ‘em twinkle and shit above the city, it’s really something. Can’t even tell where Loki ripped the sky apart this time of night, nothing up there but shit they’ve all seen and shit they blew up. 

Clint might have to take up stargazing as a hobby or some shit with his upcoming free time. 

With his luck, he’ll find Loki staring back through the telescope someday. Clint can’t quite believe he’ll never see that fucker again. 

“You really think that?” Banner murmurs, pulling Clint out of his own head with an elbow nudge to Clint’s arm. 

“Probably?” Clint passes a hand over his face, tries to rub the confusion out with clumsy fingers. “Sorry. I’m a bit out of it right now. What?” 

“Loki,” Banner prompts, but Clint suspects he’s lying. 

“Had him in my head, Doc. Can’t be sure he’s gone _now_ , let alone forever.” Clint can’t help the bitterness because fuck, life’s never promised to play fair by him but alien possession shouldn’t even have been in the cards. 

Even Clint’s life shouldn’t have gone _that_ wrong. 

“I get that,” Banner says and there’s that little smile of pleasure playing over his mouth. 

Clint is going to do something stupid tonight, he can feel it coming, and right at this moment, the odds look pretty good that it’s going to involve Banner’s mouth somehow. It’ll be so stupid and it’ll wreck everything, make things awkward and awful until Clint hits the road again, but it’ll feel _so good_ for a moment and Clint’s never been great at worrying about how much feeling good is going to cost him later. 

Clint can’t help wondering how Banner’s mouth is going to feel against his, whether Banner’s lips are as soft and full as they look, whether Banner’s going to freeze in shock long enough to let Clint coax his way in or whether Banner’s just going to hulk the fuck out. 

Clint wants all of it, whatever Banner does and lets Clint do. He wants Banner’s stubble scraping his palm when Clint cups Banner’s jaw to fix their angle and he wants to know how Banner tastes, whether Banner’s as wide-eyed and inexperienced as those ducked-head flushes suggest. Hell, Clint wants a lot and at least he _knows_ that part’s going to end badly, which is way more comforting that all this uncertainty. 

Kissing Banner right now will be _disastrous_ , Clint thinks, gleeful, and of course he’s leaning in to do it. 

Better to rip the stitches out all at once, get the shock of pain over with. Clint can handle open wounds; it’s the still-healing ones he can’t stand. 

“I’m sorry about Agent Coulson,” Banner says in the space Clint wants to be a kiss and okay, Clint can want what he likes but he’s never been good at just taking what’s not on offer. 

He backs off. Figures Phil’s laughing at him from somewhere, giving him that terrible tut-tut head shake. “Right.” 

As letdowns go, that one’s pretty decent. Clint probably ought to be grateful. He’ll have to work on that. 

“I’m sorry. I meant to say something earlier. There just never seemed to be a good time.” It’s Banner’s turn to laugh hollow, make a face at himself. “You weren’t at the memorial.” 

“Nah. Went to the SHIELD one, figured that covered it.” A guy can only take so much hostility, Clint figures, and he hadn’t felt right leaving her alone that long. 

Banner nods. “It’s not the same, obviously, but I do know a little something about losing someone you love for something you can’t help. If you ever want to talk…” 

And Banner _means_ it, is the thing. He’s all soft and serious and not hostile at all, and Clint can’t help snort-snickering at the incongruity, the way Banner’s getting this wrong. 

Shit, Banner doesn’t even get the laughter. Seems to think it’s some sort of slap at him and his oh-so-misplaced offer. Clint sighs. “Yeah, thanks, doc. Might take you on that someday, actually.” 

“I’d like that,” Banner says simply. “I wish I’d known him better. From what I’ve heard, I think I’d have liked him.” 

“Probably. He was a pretty hard guy to dislike.” 

“Were you two together long?” 

“Partners, off and on maybe six years? Mostly on once Fury saw our success rate. Hard to argue with perfection.” Clint shrugs, feels something slip from his hands an instant before something smashes below them and oh, right, his beer. Great. Broken glass to handle later. “Me and Nat and Phil, man, we were something else. Off the charts good, you know?” 

“Agent Romanov?” Banner sounds surprised. Banner’s met her, though, so Clint’s not sure how that’s possible. “Huh. She didn’t say anything.” 

“She wouldn’t.” Nat’s never been that type of girl. “I should do something about that glass.” 

Banner’s hand settles on Clint’s back, firm and hot, as though he means to hold Clint there himself. “It’s fine. We’ll deal with it tomorrow. No one else is coming out here tonight anyway.” 

And Clint knows he should pull back, put some space between them so he’s not tempted to try something stupid again tonight, but Banner’s hand feels comfortable through Clint’s shirt and when Clint shuts his eyes, tips his face up to the stars for a moment, he knows he’s not going anywhere. 

“You know the best part? I finally know the guy’s real birthday and all I can do with it is fuck myself up worse.” Clint forces a laugh because Christ, it should be funny, at some point in Clint’s future it is no doubt going to be. Right now it’s a raw scrape Clint can’t seem to forget for long enough, but that’s going to change. Clint’s been abandoned before; he knows how this works. “Seriously, man. Strippers would have been _awesome_ , he would have hated that _so much_.” 

And maybe it’s Banner half-smiling sadly at him, maybe it’s just that he’s five beers into a shitty night and so goddamned tired of every thought in his head, but something about the whole mess makes him want to turn his face into Banner’s shoulder, hide there and hold on until midnight strikes. 

Christ, who knew how much having the kid around helped keep his head straight? Or maybe fucked with it. All that practical bloodlust he’s used to fighting, that’s all vague and uninteresting now, something he’s put off long enough to maybe lose the taste for it. 

Nothing to fight except Loki or himself, he figures, and anyone else is going to feel like a subpar substitute, one more shitty mistake in a lifetime with too many of them as it is. 

“We should go in,” Banner suggests with that softness Clint wants to kiss out of him. Clint’s not sure where that softness comes from or how Banner’s held on to it this long but Clint wants to cup Banner’s face in his hands and taste it. Can’t quite trust himself to stop if he starts. Banner clears his throat a little. “You must be getting cold.” 

“You’re warm,” Clint counters. Doesn’t realize he’s apparently leaned in against Banner comfortably, that he’s already got a loose fist in Banner’s shirt to hold them still, until he sees that gorgeous _want_ in those dark eyes. Banner tucks it away fast, hides it behind lowered lashes and that luscious, solemn mouth. “Don’t really want to move, you know? I like it here.” 

Clint’s never pretended to be a particularly good man, only ever just one on the right side of law enforcement, and he’s not above pulling strings, playing dirty sometimes. 

“Clint, this is a really bad idea,” Banner says, low and thick, and it sounds most like he wants to be talked into it. 

“I am really, really good at bad ideas.” 

Banner laughs, soft and helpless. “Maybe, but I try to avoid them.” 

“This mean you need convincing?” Clint can do that. Clint can probably…

“No. Tonight it means you should tell me more about Agent Coulson if you’re feeling up to it?” 

“You’re really comfortable,” Clint says, trying to burrow his face into Banner’s chest again. 

“Clint, it’s only been a few months. Don’t you think you’re rushing this?” 

Banner sounds so _gentle_ , so very _concerned_ , and Clint doesn’t want to pull away while he’s got himself settled this well but, well, this is one of those things that’s probably going to take eye contact to clear up. 

“Okay, I wasn’t going to presume or anything but I think maybe you’ve been talking to someone at SHIELD about me?” God, Clint wishes Banner weren’t cast in near silhouette by the lights inside Stark Tower; Clint bets Banner’s flushing but to his credit, he doesn’t duck his head. 

“I may have asked around a little, after…” Banner trails off and looks away. If his head ducks, Clint is kissing him somewhere creative. “We didn’t really get a chance to talk at shawarma.” 

“And whoever you talked to told you Phil and I were a thing? Hooking up or whatever?” 

“Practically married,” Banner corrects. 

Clint rolls his eyes, has to steady himself forcibly before his vision settles again. “Phil married his job a long time ago. Planned to have 2.5 terragigs of digitalized paperwork with it someday, maybe a white picket desk set and an assigned parking space by the front door. And even if he hadn’t, we weren’t exactly what you’d call compatible.” Clint hesitates a moment, though he has no real clue why he does. “Kinsey opposites.” 

Banner’s brows knit thoughtfully, Clint thinks, but he needs more light to be sure. “That’s not what I heard at all.” 

Clint jerks his shoulders in a passable shrug. “Junior Agent baiting,” he says simply. “The only reason Phil agreed to it was because it fucked up the office betting pool.” He sighs then, misses the heat of Banner’s body, the shelter to hide his face from whoever the hell’s watching him now. _Always under surveillance_ , another fucking hazard of the job, but tonight, Clint really doesn’t want to be. “We were brothers,” he says miserably. “Phil and Nat and me, we were Fury’s field kids, you know? And we were already going to lose him on account of the kid but now, it’s like I’ve lost both of them. This fucking thing with Loki cost me both. And I don’t really…” Clint trails off, too damned frustrated to keep going with that train of thought. “So now I’m 0-for-2 on keeping brothers, 0-for-3 maybe if things don’t change with Nat, and I just…You ever need to not be in your own head, doc?”

Which, given the whole clusterfuck with Loki, should be the absolute _last_ thing Clint wants but he feels like he’s drowning in his own bullshit now and all of his escape routes are gone. 

Banner doesn’t say anything, Banner just hooks a hand on the back of Clint’s head and draws Clint back down to his shoulder, turns his own body so Clint’s almost lost in him, and Clint’s not sure whether Banner’s anchoring him or whether they’re both adrift together.

::

Stark’s waiting in the kitchen when Clint tries to scrounge breakfast the next morning, which is unusual enough to have Clint’s gaze sharpening behind his sunglasses. He feels like shit this morning, like he’s ripped something open and can’t quite get the mess off himself, and he could probably fix the worst of it with a shower but, well, he still smells like Banner.

Like _Bruce_. 

Pathetic as it makes him feel, Clint likes it. 

Stark waits until Clint’s dumping cereal in a bowl to speak up but Clint knows it’s coming; Stark’s been watching him since Clint walked through the door and Stark’s not exactly subtle. Not for someone used to Natasha. 

“So you two looked pretty cozy out there last night,” Stark says, which isn’t unexpected. Stark’s nosy, they weren’t exactly hiding, he should have figured this would be Stark’s approach. 

Still. “Huddling for warmth,” Clint says, as though that’s all it was. 

“And yet, you didn’t come inside. JARVIS, we paid the heating bill this month, didn’t we?” 

Clint rolls his eyes a little, bites down on a grin. “But then you might have overheard us. No point plotting if you’re going to lose the element of surprise.” 

Watching Stark try to figure out if Clint’s kidding is more entertaining than Clint expects; Stark is _made_ to be trolled. 

“Clint, don’t tease Tony,” Bruce says mildly as he shuffles in. 

“Not teasing, it’s baiting,” Clint corrects. “Besides, he has it coming. Somebody was _spying_ on us like a big, supergenius creep.” 

And Clint’s not expecting the way Bruce’s eyes go wide and gorgeously full of humor, the way Bruce gasps “ _Tony_!” and makes it sound like he wants to clutch his pearls in horror, and maybe Clint doesn’t know yet how Bruce’s mouth feels against his own but when Bruce ducks his head and sneaks a wicked grin at him, Clint figures it’s only a matter of time before he does.

::

Clint should probably regret running his mouth the night of Phil’s birthday but he can’t, not with how Bruce opens up afterwards. He smiles easier, makes eye contact more, doesn’t look away as fast when Clint catches him staring.

Hell, sometimes Bruce _grins_ , secret and coy, increasingly warm until Clint wants to call it flat-out hot. Clint still wants to do things to that pretty mouth, still wants to touch Bruce until those sweet brown eyes fog, but he’s not sure he’d call it a _mistake_. 

It’s not all looks and smiles and eyefucks in the lab, though; it’s the things Bruce lets slip, bits of information Clint’s still too SHIELD to ignore. He hears about Bruce’s time on the run, more than he’d expected from someone so self-contained, and he hears about Bruce’s life before the Hulk, the mother he’d lost and the foster mother who’d raised him, his time in undergrad and his deep, abiding love for the lab. 

It’s not enough to be called solid intel, not on its own, but Clint’s pretty good at reading between the lines. 

Natasha would laugh at him for running surveillance on his team, Clint thinks, but she’d also understand. Between the three of them, they have enough triggers that eventually, it’s going to sour; someone’s going to say something to set someone off and the easy way they’re interacting now is going to stop. 

Clint figures he’d be a pretty shit agent if he didn’t at least try to figure out the hazards in this op. 

When Bruce mentions the factory, he means Brazil, doing his best to play normal when he’s anything but, and when Bruce mentions the city, he means New York, means slinking back unannounced and trying to fix things, watching it all go to hell again. Clint still has security clearance and access to SHIELD’s mission files, which makes him suspect he could have Bruce’s whole life laid out for him easy enough -- Director Fury would probably consider it mission-related, given where Clint’s living now and why he’s not out in the field -- but honestly, Clint likes this better. 

Because there’s something about the way Bruce confesses the good things from the edges of the shit he’s survived that makes Clint feel human, like maybe he’s more than just his job, and without Phil Coulson and Natasha in his life, Clint’s not sure at all where else he’ll find anything like it.

::

Clint can’t sleep, too restless to keep his eyes closed for long, and it occurs to him pretty quickly that this is the itch he gets when he’s out of the field too long. Staying put in a single place, it’s not really what Clint does on his own, and the atmosphere in Stark Tower lately’s making it real hard to remember he’s technically on assignment.

Watching his kid in her canister, hanging out in the lab, none of that feels like anything he needs to include in a report. The World Security Council’s still not too happy with him for the Loki mess and if Clint weren’t out here on canister kid detail, he’d be kicking around a base somewhere, on unofficial stand down and being observed by a hundred wary eyes. 

He’s better off where he is and objectively, he knows it, but that don’t stop the itch between his shoulder blades, the sense of disconnect because he still hasn’t heard from Natasha. 

So he gives up on the whole sleeping thing for a while, shoves his shoes on and pads down to the lab. Figures if he can just steal a few moments quiet with the kid, he’ll get his head clear enough to get some shuteye later. 

Only, she’s not alone. 

Bruce is sitting at his desk, feet propped up on a corner and mug of something cupped in both hands, and for maybe the first time ever, Bruce isn’t looking at his screen. 

He looks over as Clint walks in and if he’s surprised by the company, he doesn’t show it. “Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” 

Clint shrugs, slumps low in the chair he’s adopted, settles in to watch her canister for a while. She’s getting bigger now, still so little but filling more of her canister all the time, looking more and more like something from his First Year baby books. It’s still not real, exactly, the thought of himself with a kid, but it’s getting hard to ignore the fact that someday in the not-so-distant future, she’ll be too big for her canister. That she’ll be _out_. 

There’ll be noise then, when she is. There’ll be things for him to _do_ , something more than lurking around the edges of all this science. Clint’s still fucking terrified about how he’s going to mess her up somehow, all the mistakes he’s going to make with her, but this feels like postponing the inevitable. 

She’s here and she’s real and she’s coming, not a damned thing Clint can do to stop it, and now he just wants it to fucking _start_. 

“Too damned quiet up there,” he mutters and hears Bruce’s soft, encouraging sound. “Still not used to that. Not usually a lot of quiet in my life, you know?” 

“I think there might be too much quiet in mine.” Bruce’s smile is thin and wan. Not tight, though, and not sharp; there’s no bite to it. “Never feels like enough, though.” 

Clint nods sagely, kicks back in his seat to put his feet up on the edge of the nearest workstation. “Yeah, I can see it. You seem like a quiet sort of guy.” Clint can’t help a snuff of laughter when a thought occurs to him. “Must make you nuts sometimes, sharing lab space with Stark.” 

Bruce finds his bite, lets it bloom slow and easy in his smile. Clint wishes he’d been there to see Bruce and Nat meet, because he bets that was fantastic for oh-so-many reasons. “Actually, I don’t mind when other people are loud. As long as they don’t mind when I’m not.” The glow of Flip’s canister casts Bruce’s flash of teeth something Clint thinks lesser mortals might call a threat. All Clint sees in it is honesty, the kind he hardly ever finds. Then Bruce seems to catch himself and it all disappears, pulled back behind the mild-mannered scientist with the impeccable control. “I’m dangerous when I’m loud.” 

It’s almost an apology. Christ. “Huh,” Clint says, mostly to distract Bruce off that train of thought. “I’m usually more dangerous when I’m quiet.” It’s bordering on overshare and he knows it -- Banner really doesn’t need to know the fucked up things Clint’s done in his time, especially not when Clint can’t reliably fake remorse -- but that’s not really something he wants to leave hanging between them, either. “Always said it’s the shit you don’t see coming that’ll get you in the end. The ones who see me coming, they don’t have to worry.” 

Bruce doesn’t look worried, though. If anything, he looks pleased. Gratified, maybe. “Stealth’s not really an option for me.” 

“Oh, I dunno about that,” Clint drawls, relaxing into it now that he knows Bruce isn’t over there freaking out. It’s one thing to suspect what Clint does -- did -- for a living, something else entirely to hear about it personally. “I’ve seen you gaming Tony. I know you know how to work that pretty face.” 

It works to cut the tension and it makes Bruce laugh, but it’s true, too. Clint’s seen Bruce work miracles in Stark management, seen Bruce hide everything behind that projecting calm; Bruce Banner knows more about the long con of stealth in plain sight that he’d ever freely admit and Clint finds that fascinating. 

“Right. Me and my pretty face.” Bruce sounds like he thinks Clint’s kidding. Jesus. “So what do you do with yours?” 

It’s too halting to be as off-the-cuff as Bruce probably wants it to sound but honestly, Clint’s too intrigued to care. “My pretty face?” Clint rolls his eyes, can’t quite stop the rush of pleasure from forcing his smile broad enough to feel ridiculous. “I, ah, the usual, I guess? Stop a few fists, break a few hearts, scope out the scenery.” 

He bites his upper lip, can’t stop the dickish grin long enough to wince at how obvious he’s being. Jesus, he should just wear this shit in lights. Bruce Banner is a gorgeous, wily genius with the proverbial heart of gold and Clint wants to crawl all over him for _days_. 

That scenery thing, it’s awful but it’s the kind of blunt even Bruce can’t pretend to miss. Clint should probably be expecting return fire. 

No way in hell he could have predicted what he gets, though. As it is, he considers himself lucky his jaw doesn’t drop. 

Bruce watches him for a moment, long and intent, then eases himself up out of his chair and stalks Clint‘s way, deliberate enough that Clint’s tempted to put his feet down and sit up properly. It’s a show of weakness, maybe, but refusing leaves him stretched out vulnerable when Bruce leans over him, hand planted on the back of Clint’s chair. 

“Scenery, huh?” 

“You’d be surprised what most people miss.” What the hell, Clint figures; life goes better with some risk. “A guy can see a lot, he takes the time to look.” 

Bruce shivers like Clint’s talking dirty. Hell, he might be. 

“I want to cook for you,” Bruce murmurs, mouth near enough to tease, more heat in those eyes than Clint expects with a verb like _cook_. “I want to take you out and show you how well I do noise and I want to cook for you, Clint.” Bruce’s gaze drops to Clint’s mouth. Clint fucks up swallowing. “You should let me.” 

“You getting tired of my sandwiches, Bruce?” 

God, the way Bruce smiles. Clint’s half hard already and it’s only a little wicked, not nearly what it could be, and Clint thinks Bruce might be trying to kill him with blue balls even before Bruce says, “Something like that.” 

Clint masters -- temporarily -- swallowing as Bruce walks away. 

“Banner?” Bruce stills, looks back over his shoulder. “I don’t think you’re dangerous.” 

Bruce laughs a little, low and smooth. “Yeah, you do.” 

Okay, point. “I don’t think you’re _too_ dangerous,” Clint amends. 

“No,” Bruce agrees, stealing one last look. _Just dangerous enough_ hovers between them, unsaid but not unheard. “Good night, sweetheart. Sweet dreams, Agent Barton.” 

And when the lab door’s closed behind Bruce, Clint covers his face in his palms and swears.

::

Clint’s idea of cooking is microwaving, maybe boiling water if he feels fancy, but Bruce’s is considerably more involved. Clint lays an arm across the back of his chair, rests his chin on his forearm and watches Bruce move at the stove, the contents of his chopping board slipping neatly into the pot at a nudge from Bruce’s knife.

Clint has no clue what Bruce is making but really, does he care? He’ll eat whatever Bruce puts in front of him and for Bruce, he’ll smile through it no matter how it tastes. 

“This is going to take a while,” Bruce says as he stirs his pot, only glancing back when Clint lets the comfortable silence stretch. “When I said I’d cook for you, I didn’t mean you had to help.” 

“You want me to go?” Maybe it’s a thing about people cooking, maybe they really do run other people out of their kitchens sometimes. 

Bruce shakes his head. “It’s going to be hours. Can’t rush a good _Feijoada_ or it’s not worth the Chorizo.” 

“This a science thing?” Clint saves his slow grin for when Bruce is looking, steals a moment to appreciate the way Bruce fills out his jeans. “Because I’ve got some experience waiting those out, if it is.” 

Bruce blinks at him, baffled for a second. “It’s _feijoada_ , Clint. Black beans and meat. It’s dinner. Or it will be in a few hours.” 

“Right.” Clint gets what’s happening at the stove, mostly, but he’s not sure how to explain to someone who might not actually know how much time Clint’s spent watching him from across the lab. “You just looked pretty intense, you know?” 

“Haven’t done this in a while. Wanted to make sure I get it right.” 

Clint’s not entirely sure Bruce is just talking about cooking but he knows _slow and steady_ when he hears it, can’t even say he’s all that surprised. “I’m not going anywhere.”

::

The _feijoada_ ’s good, probably, but Clint doesn’t remember much about it. Bruce says he’s picked it up in his travels and talks a bit about Brazil, how settled he’d felt there even when he’d known he couldn’t be, and Clint thinks about his week in Costa Brava, the mission he’d spent tracking a mark through Santiago and that month he’d spent lying low in Goa, all of them pretty enough to stick in their own ways but nothing that had ever made him want to stay.

If it weren’t for the Hulk Busters, though -- and that’s a stupid fucking name for a squadron, that’s not even pretending to be anything but dicks -- Clint has the very real sense Bruce would still be in South America working in a factory. 

Clint wonders just how shitty he should feel about the fact that now he’s kind of glad Bruce has had Hulk Busters prodding him along, if that’s what brought Bruce to _here_. 

Probably pretty shitty. He’s, uh, working on it. 

So Bruce hears Clint’s never really spent much time in South America and Clint asks a few pointed questions and Bruce decides Clint needs the whole experience, all the cultural immersion Bruce can conjure up, so by the time Clint’s got a bowl of _feijoada_ in front of him, there’s something soft playing in the background, candlelight and privacy, Bruce doing his best to teach Clint Portuguese. 

Nat could tell him Clint doesn’t really do new languages without a pretty steep learning curve. Given the way Bruce smiles at him, though, the way he keeps stealing heated glances, Bruce probably wouldn’t care. 

Clint’s accent is terrible, apparently, but Bruce’s sounds like aural sex; Clint doesn’t want it to stop. 

Still, there’s only so much eyefucking they can do here, only so long they can both pretend this is just dinner. 

Bruce trails off mid-sentence, frowns slightly like he doesn’t want it to end, either and looks around like maybe he’ll find something new to keep the evening going. 

“Let me guess,” Clint drawls as something slow and soft and sad starts up on Bruce’s playlist. “Another cheery one?” 

The prettier Bruce’s songs are, the more likely they seem to be to be about some bleak, depressing shit. What gets Clint most is that this is supposed to be Bruce at his happiest, the closest thing to home he’s had since his Gamma experiment. 

Bruce cocks his head, listens to the lyrics and winces. “Yeah,” he lies. 

“You know JARVIS’ll tell me later, if I ask.” 

Bruce only looks a little guilty. “I wasn’t really in the mood for _chipper_ much while I was there. Not for a long time.”

“So what changed?” 

“I did. The place just grew on me while I wasn’t looking. And after I’d been there a while, I couldn’t imagine how I’d leave.” 

Clint gets that, sort of. For him, home’s never really been a _place_ as such, it’s always been people, but he knows how it is to have that anchor yanked away, to find himself adrift for a while, and from what Bruce has told Clint about his childhood, Bruce is a guy who wants his anchor more than most. 

“You still feel like that?” If Brazil’s still home on some level, Clint can’t afford to get attached. 

Bruce thinks first, doesn’t just tell Clint what Clint so obviously wants to hear. “Manhattan has its moments.” 

Clint nods a little, can’t look away from Bruce’s eyes. “I can work with that.” 

Then Clint’s pulling Bruce back down, fitting his mouth against Bruce’s and teasing Bruce’s mouth open for him, fingers threaded through Bruce’s short, dark curls to encourage Bruce to linger.

::

Slow and steady means something entirely different in Bruce’s room, long touches and scorching looks, Bruce mapping Clint’s scars with his mouth, hands everywhere but Clint’s dick until Clint’s laughing and swearing and begging dirty.

But fuck, for this sort of payoff, slow and steady suits Clint just fine.


	3. Chapter 3

The kid’s got to be getting close to getting sprung from her canister and frankly, Clint cannot wait. He likes Bruce’s lab well enough but he’s starting to feel hemmed in, as though he’s been on edge too long, restless to just take the shot that ends the mission, whatever happens. 

Clint knows himself well enough to know there’s nothing anyone else can do about it, this is the sort of thing he has to clear up on his own, but he’s not sure how to go about it. 

He’s pretty sure he can’t tempt the kid out into the world with, like, ice cream or cheeseburgers or a chance to hang out on the roof. 

It’s really fucking frustrating, actually, worse still once Bruce starts sending him out to get some air so the other two can work and Tony figures out what’s going on. 

Clint is going to hear nesting jokes for the rest of his life. The really sad thing is, he can’t even blame Tony; he’d be making them, too. 

Then, out of nowhere, there’s Natasha stalking into Stark Tower’s living quarters like she fucking owns it, greeting Clint like it hasn’t been two long and restless months.

::

“Fury had me out on assignment,” she says, and Clint hears what she doesn’t say, her requests to be kept busy and Fury’s endless list of ways to accommodate her. She’s a little tanned and her hair is longer but she’s still exactly who and what he expects of her.

Still short and sharp with Tony, skeptical and baiting, still a little circumspect with Bruce. She greets the news that Pepper’s out of town as though it disappoints her but she settles herself at Clint’s side like that’s where she belongs and for a little while, he pretends it’s true. 

It’s like getting his old family back. 

Phil hangs between them, a name neither can quite say aloud yet, but when Natasha leans into him easily, laughs at Clint’s version of their latest prank war, Clint can’t help thinking Phil would approve. 

“How long can you stay?” 

She shrugs a shoulder elegantly. “They want us back in three days, but you know how that is.” 

Three days off in their line of work is very rarely three full days. Chances are pretty good she’ll be called away early and there’s part of Clint that expects to go with her, because hell, that’s how it tends to go. Hands down his favorite missions have been him and Phil and Nat somewhere and as he remembers it, most of those didn’t come with a lot of notice. 

Thing is, that’s not his life now. Isn’t supposed to be, anyway. “‘Us’?” he parrots, tense already. 

“Sorry,” she says and she sounds it. “They have me training up a new team.”

“Replacing us already?” he jokes. Fuck. Tries to joke. He knows it’s gone badly by how soft and careful Nat’s eyes look, how very fucking _gentle_ she’s about to be with him, but there’s not much he can do to call it back. “What would Coulson think?” 

That gets the softness out of her eyes, at least but fuck, it’s still stupid. 

“I think he’d be proud,” she says, and she sounds so certain of it, Clint just _knows_. 

Fuck Clint’s life, he’s been replaced by Captain America. There’s nowhere for him to go back to now even if he wanted and shit, it’s not like _Clint_ ’s the perfect soldier. 

“How’s that working out for you? Cap treating you right?” 

“Of course. He’s not you, so it’s different, but no concerns yet.” 

There’s more to the story, of course — there always is with Natasha — and Clint’s pretty sure she’d tell him at least some of it if he asked, but he finds he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to hear how easily she’s moved on.

::

Having Natasha around changes things, because she doesn’t like the lab and Clint knows he’s going to miss her when she takes off on him again, so for the first time in recent memory, Clint’s not in the lab much, either. He gets in a few hours while she’s working out, one eye on the clock so she won’t have to come down to find him, and he tells himself — and Flip — that he’s not skipping out on her.

He’s just…doing adult things. With his best friend in the whole world, who’s trying to be happy for him — probably — but who still doesn’t want to hear about it. 

Funny, he thinks, that the things making them both the happiest lately are things they can’t share without hurting each other, poking at old wounds, but it’s never been a given he’d have Natasha that close forever. 

If anything, it’s been a fluke he’s had her this close, this long. 

And it’s different now but it’s not impossible, they’ve dealt with unshared secrets before, they can work around this if they want, so Clint feels guilty leaving Flip alone in her canister in her corner of the lab but he thinks he’d feel worse if he lost Natasha. He’s not…He can’t have her thinking Clint’s trying to replace her with the kid. 

So Tony rubs his palms together gleefully and says it’s an excellent time to start working on Flip’s musical education, and Bruce just shakes his head fondly and promises to make Tony behave, and really, they’ve all agreed this is good practice for everyone, that Clint can trust the other two to canister-sit for him for a few days.

::

It’s been a while — too long, maybe — since Clint’s been properly out on assignment and having Natasha back just underscores how very rusty his skill set’s getting kicking around in Stark Tower like this.

She hikes a brow at him that just says _spar_ and he doesn’t even think about it, he just grins and _does_ , and not terribly long later, he’s flat on his ass, achingly contorted and wondering what the hell just happened. 

Natasha helps him up, offers a hand and a carefully neutral look, and Jesus, either she’s gotten a lot better at this while she’s been away or he’s gotten a whole lot worse. He thinks unhappily that it’s probably a bit of both. 

Cap’s been good for her, he thinks, but he’s not thrilled about admitting it. 

“Getting old on me, Hawkeye?” she asks, because she’d never call him _soft_ , but he knows what she means. 

He means to say he’s going easy on her, a welcome back sort of thing, but instead, he hears himself say, “Had to happen sometime.” 

They can’t all be genetically enhanced warriors, and Clint’s only ever just been himself. 

“Again?” he blurts, clapping his hands to pump himself up, and the way she doesn’t look at him when she nods, he knows she’s going to go easy on him this time. 

He has the uncomfortable sense he couldn’t keep up with her in the field, and maybe he’d have to work a little harder to get back up to her standard, but he finds he doesn’t want to make it a priority. 

Not like he’ll need to disarm Natasha in three moves or less while he’s on Flip duty, anyway. 

Once he gets over the fact that Nat’s going easy on him -- not her natural state at all -- he feels like it settles into what he remembers. He’s not trying to prove anything to her, doesn’t really have to, and she’s long past proving herself to him, so it’s an awful lot more like playing than either one of them will ever freely admit. 

Master Assassin Twister, he thinks as she flips him again and he hooks a foot behind her knee to bring her down right along with him. Master Assassin Twister is pretty fucking awesome, all things considered.

::

Clint limps upstairs and wonders how much more he can do this shit to himself without turning into the old fart who can tell when rain’s coming by the ache in his dodgy hip; a little more, he thinks, but not nearly as much as Natasha needs from him.

Still, it’s good to have her there, flushed and pleased and familiar, bumping his shoulder with hers as they walk because Nat does most of her talking non-verbally, sneaking little sidelong looks at him like there’s the best secret bubbling up just under her skin, keeping pace and baiting him because they’re both in that mood. 

They’re in the living room, holding mugs of coffee they’re both pretty much ignoring and having the sort of quiet Clint’s only ever had with Nat and Phil and Bruce, when Nat breaks the silence with a question more loaded then either one of them seems ready to admit. 

“So if you’re not training, what have you been up to?” 

She probably figures he’ll have another round of prank war stories for her, only he doesn’t. For a moment, he lets himself forget. “Not a whole lot, really. Bruce keeps me pretty busy in the lab.” 

He even grins at her, gets a knowing look in return, because it’s no secret between them how Clint gets around pretty, personable scientists. Nat was there for the Bobbi Morse disaster and all the random hook-up mistakes Clint made in the aftermath. 

“Really,” she hums, pursing her lips slightly in thought. “Is that what that is?” Then, almost as an afterthought, “Fury told me you were on assignment.” 

“I am and I’m not.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Hasn’t really _started_ yet, you know? But he’s...yeah. It could be. _Will_ be, I think. Hopefully.” 

She’s wary, but she wouldn’t be Natasha if she wasn’t. “Should I have a word with him?” 

Clint laughs, nerves and relief. “Not really there yet, I don’t think. But thanks. I’ll let you know?”

::

“I don’t know what Fury said, if he mentioned...” She looks away, can’t quite meet his eyes until she’s braced herself. It takes her a deep breath and a stolen moment before she can. “I talked to Phil about it before Loki, a little. Not much, I didn’t want details and I still don’t, but enough. He knew where things stood and I’m not sure you do.”

Talking to Natasha is always more about body language than it is about words, so Clint notes the unsteadiness in her tone, the resolve in her posture, and nods for more. It’s Flip, it has to be, and she doesn’t think he’ll like what she has to say. 

Not that he needs to hear it, but he thinks maybe she needs to tell him for her own reasons and hell, he can sit through whatever if it helps. “He didn’t say much, really. Just mentioned paperwork and said Phil asked for me. What’s on your mind?” 

“I’m not involved. I can’t be, and I don’t want to be.” She gives him a heartbeat to let that sink in, not that he needs it. “I’ll sign whatever you need, say whatever needs saying to whoever needs to hear it, but that’s it. At the end of the day, Clint, I don’t want any part of this and that’s not going to change.” 

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he says, and knows it’s only almost right as soon as he hears the words. “Nat, I don’t expect a damned thing from you. Not...You sign the birth certificate so the kid’s all nice and legal, sign custody over to me so no one gives me grief about it later, and that’s it.” He has to look away from her then, rolls his eyes to cover how unsettling this is, him finalizing plans to remove Natasha from what’s clearly going to be a big part of his life. “Hell, Nat, I wouldn’t even ask that much but it’s not like anyone’s going to believe I just grew her on my own.” He takes an unsteady breath of his own. “Flip needs a mother but I think we both know all that has to be is a name on a form somewhere.” 

It’s a low blow, reminding her of their less-than-stellar parentages, but it’s a necessary one. 

“And you’re all right with that?” She’s still so tentative. Clint fucking hates that. “Coulson seemed pretty sure I’d change my mind eventually.” 

Clint snorts. “We both know you won’t. Look, I get it. Kids, roots, a family, that’s not your thing. Didn’t think it was mine, either, but maybe...” He shrugs again, hopes it hides how deeply this matters. “It’s working out, right? I’m happy, you’re happy, things are good? So who am I to start fucking with that now?” 

Natasha sags like all the air’s gone out of her. Takes him a moment to be sure it’s relief. Christ, she really did think Clint was going to expect some sort of maternal instinct to kick in. 

And because he knows this is it, the point where their longstanding partnership turns into little more than memory, he can’t help but add, “Don’t you fucking dare be a stranger,” voice rough with intent. 

And even when she lays a hand over his and swears she won’t, eyes bright and smile warm, it still fucking feels like goodbye.

::

It’s almost a relief when she leaves. Not a good one, not really, but it’s a chance to start getting used to the new normal and without Natasha there to tie Clint to his past, he gets to hide out in the lab, let Bruce and Tony try to draw him back into how things were before she showed up to break his heart.

The guys let him get his sulk on -- Tony actively encourages it and Bruce is so sweet, so gentle when he leads Clint to bed -- for almost a week. Then there’s a change in the hum Flip’s canister makes and Tony fires up with _science_ and not terribly long later, the canister’s hissing open and Bruce is playing obstetrician, lifting her carefully out of her canister and putting her through her newborn checks before he hands her to Clint. 

And maybe Clint’s said a lot to her since she showed up in his life, maybe he’s covered more with Phillipa Nicole Barton than he has with all his SHIELD-appointed counsellors combined, but this is the first time he gets to talk to her while he’s got her in his arms and that makes it new. 

Makes it feel like they’re starting from scratch. 

“Hey, baby,” he tells her tiny, scrunched face, brushing a careful thumb over her soft little cheek. “Hi.” She squirms a little, shifts in her blanket and lodges a knot of disbelief in his gut. Christ, she’s _here_. She’s here and she’s _perfect_ , there is not one single thing about her Clint would change, and all he can get out for a moment is a few babbled _hi_ s, utterly entranced by how she responds to his voice. “Hi, sweetheart,” he murmurs, and “hey, Flip” and finally, _finally_ , “So in case you’re wondering, I’m your Clint, okay? You need anything, ever, I’m your guy. Deal?” 

And she doesn’t make any noise or look at him or anything, but she curls sleepily into his chest and lets him hold her while his world rights itself.


	4. Chapter 4

“Okay, kiddo, here’s how it’s going to be,” Clint says, glancing around to make a show of scene control, then again to make sure no one’s watching him pull this shit with an _infant_. “You’re still, you know, sorta on the small side so tragically, no trip to Vegas. I know, I’m disappointed, too.” He waits a beat, realizes he’s waiting for her to laugh at the punchline, and wonders exactly how long it’s going to take before he’s one of those impossible assholes telling everyone who gets caught all about their kid’s bowel movement. 

He silently promises Flip he won’t ever care. _Shit any colour you like, kid,_ he thinks, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t say it aloud. 

“So Uncle Tony is down in his workshop fu—messing around with his freeze ray or whatever, and your…Pepper was real clear we’re not allowed to go bother him unless we’re _sure_ nothing’s going to explode. So no go there. Your Uncle Bruce is doing, I dunno, science again, and I’ve got an override code, so we could totally go see him, but he gets a bit…shaky still. About you. Not your fault _at all_ , promise, he’s just like that around new people.” Clint eyes her, finds her making a face that’s both very serious and ridiculous, terribly close to blowing spit bubbles or something. 

“Yeah, I hear you. He’ll grow out of it, though. Just you wait and see.” 

He taps his fingers lightly on her belly. The spit bubbles disappear; her little limbs wave. Clint decides that’s _happy baby_ and soldiers on. He snaps and points at her. She bats at his fingers. Fuck what the baby books say, she is so aiming. “So looks like it’s just you and me, huh? It’s cool, though. We’ll be fine. Right? Of course we will.” 

He rubs her belly again, drags a finger up to stroke over her tiny chin, her little nose. Her big eyes widen at the touch. Seriously, screw the baby books, man, this kid is already extraordinary. 

“Ordinarily I’d suggest a movie but I’m guessing you wouldn’t see much of it in your car seat.” He touches her nose again, taps it gently to watch her react, her little toothless mouth moving like she can’t find words, her little hands waving and tensing again as though she’s trying to work out how to catch and hold his hand. “That’s right, that’s your nose,” Clint says, delighted by her all over again. “Pretty awesome, huh?” That is definitely smiling. Clint can’t help smiling back. “So movies are out and TV’s boring — don’t tell your Uncle Tony I said that, okay? — our best bet’s probably laundry.” 

He decides the little foot-waves then are kicks of protest, thumbs gently over her nose again to make them stop. “Yeah, not real fond of that one myself,” he confesses. “Not even my turn in the rotation.” 

Hanging around Avengers Tower by himself this time mid-morning comes with its own routine for him; if Flip weren’t tucked in her car seat baby carrier thing, looking up at him impatiently, there’d be no question at all what he’d be doing with his time. He’s sure there are lots of reasons this is a bad idea and he trusts the people around him to ‘correct’ him in detail later, but none of that matters at the moment. 

If they didn’t want her to do Clint-ish things, they shouldn’t have left her with him, he figures, and he cocks a brow at her, issues an invitation he doesn’t issue often. “Firing range time, you think?” 

And because she’s taken to lolling her head around like she’s been wiggling limbs, Clint figures that’s a yes.

::

“You sure you don’t just want to hire a nanny, Legolas?” Tony’s making faces at him over coffee and Clint’s so bleary-eyed, he can’t even really tell what they are. Clearly Hydra’s real plan with Flip was to kill Clint slowly through sleep deprivation, he thinks, and _fuck_ , he is going to hate himself so much for cracking jokes about that later.

Tony’s still talking. Clint’s trying to remember why blinking is such a bad idea. He knows it is, he’s sure it is, but his eyes are burning and his eyelids are so heavy. Clint could nap right here at the table. Shit, it’s probably still early; it probably wouldn’t be too weird. 

Something starts banging viciously to his left, startling him awake. _Oh God_ , it’s Flip. Awake again and making some sort of do-a-thing-for-me-now overtures. 

It better not be a diaper change. Those things are complicated enough as it is. 

No. She has a _spoon_. She is armed now, someone _armed her_ , the banging is just going to go on forever unless he takes it off her. 

“You know what? I’ll just get Pepper on it.” Tony’s, _fuck_ , Tony’s already got his phone out and he’s talking to JARVIS about Miss Potts and Clint knows that’s as bad an idea as the blinking is. 

He mumbles a protest and tries to wave Tony off as he moves in to coax the spoon off his little monster, who’s looking far too pleased with herself for Clint’s sanity. “C’mere, baby, you kept me up all night, that is not a fun noise right now, okay?” 

She looks up at him as though she’s startled by his audacity. Part of him wants to delight in her attitude already, his kid takes no shit from _anyone_ ; part of him wants to thunk his head down on the table and maybe catch a nap. Clint’s run long missions before, gone without sleep for extended periods and held his shit together. He’s never been this bad, but he’s not exactly working off the adrenalin rush of a life-or-death situation now. 

It occurs to him belatedly that Flip is in her high chair, that there’s nothing that looks like Flip food anywhere in sight and that tired as Clint is, he might well have slipped into the chair beside her to fasten her safety straps. 

He wonders how long he’s been sitting here doing nothing, then wonders if he really wants to know. Probably not. 

“Come on, Pep, you should see him,” Tony says, waving wildly in Clint’s direction and getting all excited into his phone. Clint doesn’t even understand how excited _works_ right now. “He looks like a Romero extra. It’s terrible. He was drooling on my table.” 

Wonderful. Now Tony’s pouting. 

“Potts, the guy needs help. No, I don’t care, you don’t _need_ maternal — What? There has to be a service out there somewhere and if not, we’ll start one.” 

Clint groans. “Stark, wait, what are you doing?” 

“Getting you a nanny, Katniss, so you stop looking like you’ve just crawled out of the Walking Dead.” 

“No!” Alarm wakes Clint up, leaves him better able to re-orient himself. Christ, this lack-of-sleep thing sucks. “Christ, Stark, this whole thing is eight different kinds of classified. Hell, even _I_ don’t have clearance to cover this, let alone some nanny whatever Potts pulls out of the Yellow Pages.” 

Tony moues. It is not adorable. 

“Barton, you drooled on my table. You’ve been dragging your ass for days and it’s not getting better. Can you really tell me you can keep this up?” 

“I have to,” Clint says simply. “What choice do I have?” Flip’s palms thump against her high chair tray. Jesus. “She’s not going to stop needing shit just because I’m sleepy.” 

“Which is my point, yet I don’t feel I’ve made it. Huh.” Tony’s distracted again, distancing himself. Clint wants fucking Jedi powers to get Flip’s breakfast going. “So what is it she needs?” 

Clint stares balefully through one burning eye, pretends the eye he’s got closed is completely intentional. “Just shit, Tony. Food, bottle, soother, diaper. Blanket or…Just _stuff_.” Clint snorts at himself, gives up his delusion he’s managing _parenting_ to tell Tony straight. “At this age, it’s pretty much all fetch and carry anyway.” 

And that, apparently, is what gives Tony his first bright baby-raising idea.

::

“Uh, I don’t think this is the best idea ever,” Clint says warily, trying to keep an eye on Tony without bumping into anything or upsetting Flip. Tony’s already tried to cover Clint’s eyes and lead him into the workshop but Clint’s had to put the kibosh on that, because Flip is physically attached to him — hands-free mode, fuck yeah — and Clint remains leery of Tony’s workshop in general.

Tony wouldn’t mean to hurt her, Clint knows he wouldn’t, but that workshop explodes pretty damned regularly; that is not a safe place for babies. 

Tony waves off Clint’s objections, though, urging Clint forward with a hand on Clint’s back, almost vibrating with that smug excitement that comes when he’s invented something. Clint is almost afraid to ask. 

“You’re worrying about nothing, Momma Katniss,” Tony promises, grand as ever, and Clint glares at him, glances questioningly at Bruce. 

Bruce just shakes his head sadly, bites down on a smile. That is not encouraging, but it is adorable. And hell, Clint figures, there’s no way Bruce would let him in here with Flip if it was too dangerous. Bruce is good like that; Bruce looks out for her, even if he keeps his distance. 

“Keep it up, Auntie Tony, and I’ll aim her your way when I burp her,” Clint mutters. 

Tony only sputters indignantly a little. 

“The baby’s not a weapon, Hawkeye,” Bruce tut-tuts, still battling that smile, and God, the man’s gorgeous. “And don’t worry. Tony might wet himself from excitement before he gets around to showing us why we’re actually here but I’m pretty sure JARVIS helped him with the planning.” 

Tony snaps and points at Bruce as he rounds his workstation, heading for the herd of bots that tend to chill out in the corner. One, the mechanical arm Tony insults most often, whirrs to life and approaches, puppy-eager. 

“Mister Stark’s plan is 69.74 per cent his own doing,” JARVIS says. Clint hikes his brows and looks at the ceiling. “I merely assisted with optimizing safety protocols.” 

“That is a lot of safety protocol,” Clint points out, but Tony’s back to ignoring him, fussing with the mechanical arm bot, keying something in on his tablet and muttering science. “Well? We’re here? What’s up, Stark?” 

Tony waves him off again, bats a hand over his shoulder and says, “Working here, quiet now,” with familiar impatience. 

“So on a scale of one to what-the-fuck, how much do you think we’re going to regret this?” Clint asks sotto voce, sneaking another look at Bruce. 

“Baffled amusement,” Bruce answers, as though that’s a point on the scale. Actually, knowing Tony, it probably is. 

Clint takes that into consideration. “Blackmail potential?” 

“Oh yeah,” Bruce agrees. “Pretty high, I’d think.”

Clint lets out a slow breath. “Well, that’s something.” 

Then the mechanical arm’s whirring up again, making sounds Clint wants to call _happy_ and maybe _excited_ , and Tony’s turning back with a victorious look. 

“A-ha!” Tony declares, holding his arms out to present his own majesty. “O ye of little faith. Come, non-believers. Bask in my brilliance.” 

The mechanical arm’s moving in on Clint. Waving its pincher claw at him and spinning it as it whirrs. Clint wants to take a few giant steps back and stick Flip behind him, just in case this is some sort of AI incident waiting to happen. There’s a running bet at SHIELD that Tony’s going to actually make Skynet at some point and from the way he looks now, that time may have arrived. 

“Um, what are we basking in?” Bruce asks. 

“Stark, that thing gets any closer, I’m shutting it down.” Clint is okay with Tony’s Skynet potential for himself but not when he’s got Flip strapped to him. That shit is just not okay. 

Tony looks crestfallen, then almost plaintive. “Dummy won’t hurt her. That’s why he’s got his safety protocols. Dummy, stop for a minute? Barton’s getting squeamish.” 

“Squeamish about what, exactly?” Clint asks. 

“Tony,” Bruce cautions. “We talked about this. You can’t make things for people and not tell them what it does. Remember?” 

Tony blinks. For a moment, he looks like a little boy. 

“Squeamish about what, exactly?” Clint repeats steadily. “Tony, what did you make?” 

“Not _make_ , reprogrammed. Barton, meet Dummy. He’ll be your new nanny.” 

The mechanical arm — _Dummy_ — whirrs again, soft and almost plaintive. Clint has definitely spent too much time with Tony Stark if he’s projecting emotional responses on the bot herd but he’d swear the arm is, well, responding. Emotionally. Fuck. 

“My new…nanny,” Clint repeats, trying to make it fit somehow, but of course it doesn’t. Tony Stark and technology means sometimes feeling three steps behind, but Clint’s getting used to that. Thinks maybe they all do, the people Tony actually lets into his life. 

“You said it’s all fetch and carry at this age. Dummy’s a great fetcher. It’s his favorite game.” Tony sounds…fond. Of his bot. “He’s pretty good at the carry, too.” 

“Stark, he’s not human,” Clint points out, and the dimming enthusiasm — _dammit, Tony_ — pulls out of him, “No offense, little guy. The baby books don’t exactly cover this and I’m trying to keep her safe, too, you know?” 

The mechanical arm flaps its claw twice and beeps softly. Clint refuses to ascribe any emotional reaction to it. 

“You’re right,” Tony says, and something’s put that mad genius gleam back in his eyes. “Dummy’s not human. He’s better. He won’t hurt her, he _will_ protect her, and he doesn’t need sleep. He can check on her in the night or if you’re doing something, and if he has to, he’ll have JARVIS find you.” Tony’s gone quiet now, almost pleading Clint to understand. “He can make bottles and find toys and do laundry. He…You can watch him at first, set your parameters and work the bugs out, but he’s everything you said you want in a nanny and none of the things you said you can’t have. So…” Tony shrugs. “Happy birthday?” 

It’s not Clint’s birthday, not even close, but Jesus, if any of that’s true — and it would be, coming out of Tony Stark’s workshop — then holy shit, Clint’s life just got easier. _A lot_ easier. 

“You serious, man?” The prospect of not doing laundry — or, hell, maybe not changing diapers — is unreal, a utopia Clint is not expecting. The prospect of actual sleep…Yeah. Okay. _Okay_ , Clint can do this.

::

Dummy actually makes a decent nanny once Clint’s got the bugs worked out. There’s a whole awkward moment where Clint thinks maybe Flip’s going to be afraid of it — him? Clint doesn’t know, man, _Dummy_ — and he’s having projection problems again because he thinks maybe Dummy’s nervous, too, but it all goes pretty smoothly, really. Dummy cranes in its-his hand-claw thing in a way Clint ways to call tentative or, shit, skittish, and Dummy’s whirring softly at her, moving slowly so Flip has time to react.

Flip just blinks up at it, eyes so bright it hurts, and waves-kicks her baby limbs all happy-delighted baby. 

Dummy hesitates again when Flip bats out at it but then Flip’s laughing, definitely delighted baby, and she makes a coaxing coo Clint has never heard from her before that spurs Dummy back into motion. 

Jesus Christ. His kid’s still an infant and she’s already a total, shameless flirt. With Tony’s _bots_ , God help him. 

“Flip, that’s Dummy,” Clint says, and has to clear his throat. He glances up at Tony to threaten him into ignoring the blackmail potential and finds Tony just as nervous as Clint feels, straining not to do anything that might break the moment. 

Clint can’t tell if Tony’s nervous for Flip or Dummy or what; realizes he’s being ridiculous, because obviously it’s both. 

At the sound of Clint’s voice, Flip’s turned her delighted baby on him, wiggling and trying so hard to grasp Dummy’s claw as though she means to show him off. 

“You like him, baby? Good, because he’s going to help me out sometimes. Right, Dummy?” 

Dummy whirrs again, which startles Flip and sets off a round of happy baby kicks again. Clint knows babies this age aren’t supposed to be _this_ responsive to their surroundings but fuck the baby books, man, this kid is. 

“Dummy, fix her sock?” Tony asks, and he has to clear his throat. Clint feels better when he hears it. 

Dummy does, moves its crane-hand thing to catch the edge of Flip’s baby sock and nudges it a little higher on her ankle, slips it back on her foot where she’s kicked it loose. 

Flip takes that as a challenge, maybe, because she kicks it down again. Dummy fixes it and, well, Clint can see where this is going. 

“Nah, Dummy, it’s good. She’s fine. Thanks, though, buddy.” And yeah, Clint feels ridiculous talking to a bot like it’s a person but, well, he doesn’t want Flip to grow up thinking Clint’s left her to a machine. 

Not when all available evidence says she’s been touch-starved so long.

“What about her soother?” Tony asks, and Clint realizes Tony’s trying to do that parameters-setting, bot-testing thing. Huh. 

Clint nods. “Yeah, that works.” 

“Okay. Dummy, find her soother?” 

Dummy does. 

Clint doesn’t even have words for what he feels when Flip takes her pacifier from her nanny-bot, except that relief isn’t even the half of it.

::

Dummy’s not perfect, though. Tony shrugs and says there’s a reason the bot’s name is _Dummy_ and Bruce mostly just raises his eyebrows and keeps quiet until Clint holds a demonstration of what he’s calling _the diaper bug_.

Because Tony’s programmed Dummy to do all sorts of things — and really, Clint is _unbelievably_ fond of the laundry and the bottle-making parts — but diapers remain a complete disaster no amount of troubleshooting seems able to correct. 

The first diaper Dummy puts on is so loose, it slides right off her when Clint picks her up. Clint decides that’s a good thing, better than the alternative, but only once he sees what the alternative _is_. He’s glad in retrospect that he’s cornered the bot for practice on a watermelon, because Christ, that fruit just _explodes_. 

Tony says that’s not even possible, he wouldn’t have programmed Dummy to behave that way, but Bruce points out the experiment’s repeatable under similar conditions and, well, the long and short of it is that Dummy can’t do diapers. 

“It’s okay, D,” Clint says tiredly, patting Dummy’s claw. “I sucked at them in the beginning, too.” 

And clearly Clint’s been drinking the Tony Stark kool-aid or some shit because when Dummy whirrs this time, Clint swears it sounds grateful and appeased.

::

When Clint goes to the firing range with Flip, Dummy follows him, carting the diaper bag of shit Clint’s baby books think Flip needs to haul with her, whirring happily when Clint sets Flip up in her baby carrier so Dummy can help her rock.

::

The sleeplessness situation gets a little better with Dummy around to help but Clint’s still living with a pair of scientists and Pepper Potts, which makes three determined workaholics, and whatever AI wizardry makes Dummy so determined to take care of Flip also covers Tony.

Clint thinks maybe that’s how Tony knew what Dummy could do, but he never asks. Instead, he has a word with Dummy one day while they’re in the kitchen trying to handle some sort of lunch, asks if Dummy would mind keeping an eye on Bruce and Pepper, too. 

Flip’s got Clint and always will; he’s grateful for Dummy’s help but she is Clint’s responsibility and she always will be. Still, Clint can’t haul all his workaholics to bed on time or make sure they eat properly — these are big concerns with his scientists but he’s noticed Pepper pushing herself, too, when she’s around — but Dummy totally can. 

Dummy takes his new assignment like a _boss_.

::

Bruce finds him while Clint’s getting his ass kicked at chess, because Dummy has _skills_ Tony forgot to mention, and it says something about life in Stark Tower that Bruce apologizes to Dummy for the interruption and offers to come back later.

Flip’s sleeping now, though, a slump of quiet baby in the Jolly Jumper thing Tony’s ‘tweaked’, and Clint’s done enough of this parenthood thing to appreciate the opportunity that presents. 

“No time like the present,” he says, grins at Bruce in gratitude for the reprieve, and pats the table twice to draw Dummy’s attention off the game. “Mind giving us a minute here, D? Promise, you can kick my ass again when we’re done.” 

Dummy whirs and chirps, as close to Tony’s trash talk as Dummy gets, and Clint rolls his eyes fondly as Dummy waves him off. 

Bruce looks amused. He’s leaning back by the door, arms folded patiently across his chest, and he watches Clint like there’s still some mystery to figure out there. Relative to the whole rest of Clint’s life, he’s an open book in Stark Tower but sometimes, he swears Bruce sees something to sort out. 

It should be irritating, the lack of trust when Clint’s giving this emotional vulnerability thing a try, but it’s not, maybe because Clint thinks it’s not Clint Bruce doesn’t trust. 

“Does Tony know you two have teamed up on us?” Bruce asks, mild. 

Clint shrugs. “I tried teaching him dirty limericks but apparently he doesn’t talk. Loses the sting if it’s all just whirring, you know?” 

“Dirty...?” Bruce blurts a laugh and looks away. “Of course you did, _of course_.” Then the smile fades as Bruce looks him over, strictly serious, oddly solemn. “I know what you’re doing.” 

“Corrupting the robot?” 

Bruce flushes. Mumbles, “Looking after us.” 

Clint feels his eyebrow hike. “Some reason I shouldn’t?” 

Bruce doesn’t say so, but Clint doesn’t need to _hear_ it, not when it’s right there in Bruce’s flustered face; it’s not so much that Bruce objects to someone looking after him a little, it’s that Bruce isn’t sure what to do about it, that Bruce doesn’t have enough experience with it to _understand_. 

Clint wonders what Bruce would make of how Clint and Nat and Coulson had been, the way Fury’s field kids had had each other’s backs like this and more. Clint liked that and he misses it, knowing there’s someone out in the world who’ll pull him back from his own worst tendencies, and he suspects he’s trying to recreate it in his way here at Stark Tower. 

He figures no one who’s been part of Fury’s field kids could really do _team_ any other way, not for any team that mattered. 

“You don’t have to,” Bruce says finally. 

Clint’s pretty sure he does. “And if I want to?” He lets his mouth tug up at a corner, eases back cocky-lazy-alert. Looks Bruce over long and slow, lets frank appreciation heat his gaze, color his grin until it’s probably a smirk. “Maybe I like it, enabling the science.” 

Bruce stills for a moment, breathes unsteadily as he lets it go. “Well then, thank you,” he says, soft and so very tentative, and because Clint can feel Bruce trying, warring with his own damage to get this far, Clint tips his head slightly, murmurs, “ _De nada_ ” in his shitty Portuguese, getting the accent wrong enough to tug a smile out of Bruce.

::

And for a while, things are good. Flip is growing, Flip is sleeping, Flip is the best kid in the world. Clint has maybe got this whole baby-raising thing down and he thinks, when he gets a moment that’s not all adorable infant and robo-nanny, that this is working out.

Maybe he doesn’t get much time with Bruce but it’s okay, he thinks; it’s _temporary_. Baby drool and formula vomit probably aren’t that appealing and for better or worse, Flip sort of owns him, but there are better times ahead. She’ll sleep through the night, his baby books promise; he’ll get to the point where he can take some adult time without feeling guilty. 

All he has to do is wait. 

Well, in theory, anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

Flip is a total cockblock. And okay, he knew she would be, at least for a while, but she’s some kind of Bruce repellant. 

This is not fantastic news.

::

Clint stops accessorizing with the spit-up towel and he shakes the smell of baby powder and dirty diapers, and hell, he stops looking like the Walking Dead. He puts on real clothes instead of his track pants and he makes an effort, he shaves and flosses and everything, talks Tony into prodding Bruce out of the lab so he’ll be around for dinner.

Clint has _plans_ , is the thing, Clint means to celebrate nine whole hours of continuous quiet, and the best way to do that involves a gorgeous genius sharing Clint’s bed. 

He even gets a little. Bruce shows up sleepy-eyed and rumpled, Bruce smiles and lets Clint pull him close, Bruce cups Clint’s neck and kisses him deep while they’re fumbling blind for Clint’s couch. He palms Clint’s shirt up and kisses Clint’s neck, licks a hot stripe and bites at Clint’s jawline, and it feels so good after their newborn break that Clint just melts with it, lets Bruce do whatever. 

Bruce’s back is hot and solid through the thin cloth of his shirt and Clint shifts a little to get busy unbuttoning, letting Bruce lean over him to try to help. 

God, Bruce looks so good. It’s been way too long. 

And Bruce is fixated on a spot on Clint’s collarbone like Clint is fixated on the curve of Bruce’s ass and they’re both drowning in each other, he thinks, this is exactly how it should be, and Bruce mutters things in scorching hot Portuguese that make Clint flush. He doesn’t know the words but that tone is unmistakable. 

“Yeah, anything,” Clint answers, fumbling back because that’s more leeway than he usually gives, but he trusts Bruce like he can’t remember ever trusting anyone else he’s fucked. 

He trusts Bruce enough to want to sleep beside him with Flip just down the hall. Trusts Bruce not to hurt him in any way he won’t appreciate, now and later. 

So when Bruce clamps down on one sucked-red nipple, Clint yelps and laughs. Then Clint says, “Shhh, quiet, you’ll wake her up.” 

It takes way to long to work out that Bruce isn’t laughing. 

Takes long enough, actually, that Bruce is getting up, getting dressed, backing away and mumbling bullshit about how this isn’t a good idea, Bruce is _tired_.

::

So that fucking happens.

It is not an isolated incident, either. 

Bruce lives in his lab and Clint can come visit, the door’s ‘always open’, but never with Flip, because it’s _dangerous for babies_ , even when Bruce is just crunching numbers. Bruce comes to dinner if Clint talks Tony into dragging him but Tony’s not human, Tony Stark’s a machine, and regular mealtimes just aren’t a thing Tony does. When Bruce shows up, he sits as far away from Flip as possible, and Clint wants to think this is Natasha all over again, someone else in his life who just can’t do babies, but Bruce won’t stop _staring_. 

What Clint sees in those eyes doesn’t fit with the no-babies theory, not when Bruce keeps drinking in the sight of her like he means to memorize it all, and that is not a face that should be running from her at every possible opportunity. 

It takes him a week to work out what’s up. Clint blames months of sleep deprivation.

::

“You avoiding me for a reason, Brown Eyes? This your way of saying you’re not interested anymore?”

Bruce’s gaze sweeps the room like he’s checking out the escape routes. Clint sighs mentally and leans back by the door, lurking at the lab entrance so Bruce can’t bolt. 

“What? No, I’ve just been busy.” Total bullshit, according to Tony, but Bruce looks like he wants to mean it. Fucking scientists, man. So predictable. 

“So I’ve heard. Here’s the thing, though: I’m busy, too. Dunno if you’ve noticed but I’ve got a thing eating up all my time. Makes it kind of hard to keep tracking you down, you know?” _Slow and steady_ means he can’t push but Christ, he wants to. “But Bruce, I’m trying. Making an effort. And it’s good with us, I think, I think it’s worth trying, but you’ve got to meet me halfway. Otherwise, what’s the point?” 

Bruce just watches him, hungry and skittish. Clint wants to cross the room and crawl into that lap, settle himself between Bruce and his work so Clint can kiss that look off Bruce’s face, ease the tension out of him. 

“You’re right,” Bruce says finally, and then he repeats it. “You _are_ trying and I’m not really holding up my end of this, am I?” Bruce blurts a soft sound Clint won’t mistake for a laugh, rubs at his nose underneath his glasses. “I just...can’t. Not with the baby. It’s...” Bruce trails off, squints at nothing. “You know what you’re getting into with me, Clint. She doesn’t. And I can’t take that risk.” 

It’s not unexpected. Hell, Bruce only really has the one big hang-up, everything else just pales by comparison to how much he does not trust his Other Guy, So Clint wants to argue, but that’s a losing game, possibly always will be, and Clint is not going to pretend dignity here. He wants whatever part of Bruce he can have, for however long he gets it. 

“It’s Flip, though? It’s not me?” Bruce is not the only one with issues; Clint needs to hear it, too. Or see it, whatever, the way Bruce looks like Clint’s stunned him is good enough. “Okay then. We can work with that.” 

Bruce seems suspicious. “Work with that how?” 

“I don’t know, I’ll find a sitter? Maybe not Dummy, he likes having me close by _in case of incident_ , but Tony?” Bruce scrunches his nose. “Okay, yeah, maybe not Tony. But someone? A responsible someone I can leave my kid with? I do that, are we good?” 

And yeah, apparently they are. 

The only problem, then, is finding someone to watch her.

::

Pepper? Is not a babysitter. Natasha? Is a hell no, Clint won’t even ask her. JARVIS could do it but JARVIS is incorporal, which seems like leaving her with Dummy, and Tony’s best efforts involve Flip in the workshop.

JARVIS cuts that night short before they’re even undressed. Apparently Tony is another _in case of incident_. 

Clint’s beyond frustrated and Bruce is withdrawing and Flip is still the greatest kid in the world but Clint’s life is woefully short responsible adults. It might be time to get desperate, try Grandpa Fury again. 

Then, like a gift from Asgard, Dr. Foster gets the Einstein-Rosen bridge working again and Clint has himself one demigod about to get a crash course in Midgardian young.

::

Thor moves in with Dr. Foster and spends an hour or so being, well, Thor at everyone before Flip’s up from her nap.

Then Thor’s curious and Clint doesn’t have it in him to ward the big guy off. 

If Thor doesn’t scare her, he figures, she’s probably okay with loud. This bodes well for the Hulk. 

“So this is a tiny Midgardian,” Thor says, staring down at her. Flip’s fucking _tiny_ anyway, she always seems so little in her crib, but Thor is massive, he is a slab of happy Asgardian turned quiet and careful in her presence. 

“Yep.” Clint scoops her up and does a diaper check, heads her over to her change table to use his ninja diaper skills. “Grab me her Iron Man hoodie?” Thor frowns at him, very _what is this ‘hoodie’ you speak of_ , so Clint tucks Flip up on his shoulder and dances over to grab it himself, swinging her down on her change table with a flourish that gets her happy-baby kicking and laughing at him. “You, little monster,” he warns, pointing at her and trying not to smile when she clutches at his finger. “I am putting socks on you. You hear me? And it is your job to keep them both on your feet. Deal?” 

He brushes his fingertip over her nose. She squeals in delight, rocks happily. Happiest kid in the galaxy, he thinks, and he is ridiculously proud of her for being that kind of outstanding already. 

Delighted baby is fun to watch but it is hell itself to change, though, so Clint has to get creative with her. Thor’s just the obvious choice. “Hey, big guy, mind giving me a hand here?” 

“How can I help?” Thor asks. Flip goes a little nuts at the sound of Thor’s voice, beams toothlessly up at him and won’t even blink for watching him. Clint’s kid is barely six months old now and she’s already got her first crush. Fabulous. 

“I need a distraction,” Clint says, working her onesie loose. “Give her your finger for a sec?” 

And okay, Flip looks even tinier hanging on to Thor’s big finger but she stays still for him, lets Clint change her and get her dressed, sock and all. When Thor has to let go so Clint can slide her hoodie on, she protests with righteous little fists and that firm determination that had her crawling early. 

As soon as both her sleeves are on, Thor holds out a cautious finger. “Is it all right, Clint Barton?” 

“What? Oh, yeah, that’s cool.” Actually… “You want to hold her?” 

“She is quite strong for one so small,” Thor says. Clint’s pretty sure Thor’s not talking to him. 

“Kids aren’t small on your world?” 

“They are,” Thor agrees. “But they are rarely this small around me.” 

Clint glances up at him, finds Thor’s smile creasing the skin around his eyes, something pretty heavy behind it. Total SHIELD baby, he thinks; coaxing everybody’s secrets out of them, not giving away any of her own. “No real trick to ‘em. Just keep her head supported and try not to drop her. I’m told they don’t bounce.” 

“That is good to know.” 

Thor takes her easily, holds her delicately in the crook of an arm and looks to Clint for adjustments. 

“Your arm’ll get tired holding her like that and anyway, she’s squirmy. Got a mind of her own, this one.” Clint can’t help his pride.

::

Getting Thor to hold the tiny Midgardian is the first step in what proves to be a simple process. Clint’s got himself a sitter before Thor even knows it’s a choice and from the way Dr. Foster gets gooey-eyed at the sight of Thor holding an infant, Flip’s in good hands.

Soon enough, her daddy should be, too. Clint cannot wait. 

Thor has one little moment of parental misgiving when Clint drops her off but it stays mercifully brief. 

“I have not yet had strong sons and clever daughters to carry on in my stead. I am not…I do not feel myself ready.” Thor frowns in thought, looks at Flip as though she’s some test he cannot pass. 

Clint’s not real sure what to say to that, what Phil would say, but it’s not like he can’t weigh in himself. “Well, when you are, if you need baby books and furniture and shit, you know where to find it.” Clint flashes Thor a tight, uncertain grin. Then, because Thor still looks serious, introspective, Clint says, “If it helps, man, I didn’t, either. Not sure anyone does.” 

It feels like forever before Thor grins back, just as uncertain but achingly hopeful, and then Clint’s thumping Thor’s arm and wishing him luck, strolling off to find Bruce to make up for lost time.

::

For a while, it’s _outstanding_. Clint is a genius. Bruce is hot and hard and strong under his lab coat and he touches Clint like Clint’s his whole world. Clint is the luckiest bastard in ever because look at his life; he’s got his kid and he’s got his friends and he’s got his Clint-and-Dummy time -- because they are bonding -- and now, he’s got _this_ , Bruce in his bed holding him close, making Clint feel more and more like this is how life should be.

It helps that Thor adapts so fast to his small Migardian charge, and that Thor doesn’t mind taking her so Clint can steal some time with Bruce. Bruce gets weird about it sometimes, flustered and worried they’re overstepping, asking too much of Thor’s time and energy, and Bruce still gets weird about the Hulk, but that’s _Bruce_. 

Just one more thing Clint loves about him, how anxious he gets when he thinks he’s intruding, how often he puts everyone else first.

It’s not the only thing Clint loves about him, sure, but it’s definitely right up there.

::

Things can’t stay that good forever, and even as Clint appreciates how easy it’s been since Thor showed up like the anti-cockblock, Clint knows it can’t last.

Eventually, Bruce’s Other Guy is going to find out there’s a tiny person in the tower and when he does, someone’s going to have to deal with it. 

Going to have to _explain_. 

Clint can think of better ways to spend his time alone with Bruce than teaching Hulk about child-appropriate behavior but honestly, by the time it comes up, Clint’s glad it has. 

If nothing else, it’s the next logical step in making things permanent, or as close as Clint gets. 

And Hulk, as it happens, is pretty good about it, once he understands.

::

“She’s only still just little, we have to be _quiet_ and _careful_ when she’s around, and I know you can be both, buddy, if you know it’s important.” Clint smiles encouragement, nods for agreement. Hulk’s face twists in thought before he nods back.

“Baby,” Hulk says, testing the word. 

“Yep, that’s right. Baby Phillipa. We call her Flip.” 

Hulk tries the name out and abandons the thought when he doesn’t see her there in the room, and honestly, Clint thinks that’s the end of it. 

So much less traumatizing than Bruce thought but whatever, Clint’s just glad it’s done. 

Then Hulk shows up mid blowjob, because Clint really is that good with his mouth, and Clint’s too busy trying to compartmentalize the cockblock to deal with the panic. 

“Baby?” Hulk asks, unsteadily, green eyes gone soft and sweet with alarm. 

Clint lays on his back on the far side of their bed, hands on his face while he tries to re-anchor himself, breathing heavy and hot all over. When he glances up, Hulk’s hovering over him, his dark brows drawn together, his big mouth twisting unhappily. 

“Cupid,” Hulk says urgently. It’s so very much softer than Clint expects. “Cupid, baby?” 

It takes Clint a moment to work past his aching dick but, well, _baby_ ’s not a new concept in his life. “Flip, buddy?” 

Hulk looks confused but he nods. “Cupid, Hulk smash baby?” 

He sounds worried he has. Christ. Clint wishes Bruce could see himself when he gets like this, because Clint’s pretty sure this would put a lot of Bruce’s bullshit to rest. 

Clint must take too long to get an answer out, though, because Hulk sort of…keens. Looks upset. Not smash-ragey but _hurt_. 

So Clint jackknifes up, pushes everything else away. 

“No, buddy,” Clint says, touching Hulk’s broad shoulder to draw his attention again. “ _No_ , Hulk didn’t smash. Flip’s fine, Green Eyes, she’s in her room with Thor.” 

“Hulk not smash?” Hulk looks skeptical. Clint has no clue how so many people miss this, the depth and intelligence of Bruce’s greener side. 

Clint wants to laugh. Isn’t quite sure how it would sound, what Hulk would make of it. He’s still needy and restless to give that blowjob but that’s not going to happen, at least not tonight, and instead of sucking Bruce off until Bruce pulls his hair and comes, Clint’s apparently going to have to reassure his worried rage monster. 

What even is Clint’s life? 

“You smashed the nightstand and you knocked some shit over, buddy. I don’t even want to guess what you did to your cell phone but I’m going to bet it’ll make Tony cry tomorrow. But no, you absolutely didn’t hurt the baby. Okay?” 

Hulk thinks that over. Clint shifts uncomfortably in his jeans, glad he hadn’t gotten as far as undressing but not exactly grateful for the tight fit at the moment. 

“Hulk loud,” Hulk informs him, so serious about it Clint can’t help a lopsided grin. “Baby not like loud.” 

“Baby can’t hear you.” Clint drags himself out of bed, tugs his shirt back on as he heads for the bathroom to splash cold water on his overheated face. “You want to watch a little Dora the Explorer with me, Green Eyes? Or we could see if there’s something good on the Outdoor Life network?” 

Hulk likes wilderness shows, backwoods survivalist campers and shit from the Discovery Channel, the family lives of gazelles and the migration patterns of birds, that sort of thing. Hulk thinks Steve Irwin’s funny and Hulk claps sometimes for Jack Hanna but he gets a bit angry when the animals get hurt. 

Clint can’t say that any of that would have been on his to-watch list before Hulk but he can usually follow Hulk’s shows better than he manages with the things Bruce picks. 

“Baby watch Dora?” Hulk wants to know. 

“She’s, uh, too young for tv still but I bet when she’s old enough, she’d love to watch it with you. You can help her find things, right?” 

Hulk nods, happy enough about the plan, and Clint asks JARVIS to pull something appropriate off their DVR. 

Clint gets Bruce back at the tail end of Happy Feet, the only penguin movie Hulk can stand. 

All things considered, Clint thinks that went well. 

Bruce, on the other hand, disappears.

::

Clint’s got drool and baby vomit on his back, Flip’s burping towel slung over his shoulder and every reason to think she’s missed it again, his tiny, perfect kid resting quiet against his chest and probably totally aware she’s been naughty. She’s still so little there’s not much she can do to prank him and hell, every baby thing he’s read says at this age, she won’t even try, but Clint likes to think his kid is the kind of fabulous that pranks and gets contrary right from the start.

He can’t quite believe anyone with Natasha’s genetic makeup misses so consistently _accidentally_ , is all. 

Still, Clint having baby fluids -- drool’s a big one but there’ve been a few unhappy incidents with misfastened diapers and pretty much every burping session goes the spit-up route -- that’s not exactly new. When Dummy’s around, Clint tends to get mauled with a damp cloth, Dummy’s cleaning subroutine running near-constantly because Flip gets messy. 

When the door chimes, Clint wonders if JARVIS is selling him out now, if he’ll open his door to find Dummy hovering with a damp cloth and that overeagerness to help Clint’s not entirely sure he’s projecting anymore. 

That might just be _Dummy_. And, well, everybody has their quirks. Dummy means well; Clint can live with getting soaked. 

It’s not Dummy, though, it’s Tony, who’s brought a mug of coffee the size of Flip’s head and a teddy bear. 

Clearly Tony’s going to be the one who spoils her. Clint can see it coming. Can’t bring himself to make Tony stop. 

“We need to talk, Barton,” Tony says, blunt, and sort of pushes the bear at him. Clint blinks, tries to point out he’s short free hands. If Tony’s not using nicknames, he must think it’s serious but for once, he doesn’t look angry or scared or dickish; Clint steps aside to let him in. 

“What’s up?” Clint asks as Tony moves in, looks around like he’s charting the changes Clint’s made to his quarters to accommodate Flip. 

“It’s Banner,” Tony says, glancing back at him significantly, and Clint doesn’t even question it, just says, “Let me change my shirt?” 

He’d put Flip in her car seat carrier deal while he does because he’ll need his arms free but Tony’s watching, looking like he wants things he’s not sure how to ask for, and Clint lifts his chin instead. “Here, want to take her for a minute?” 

It’s not really a question. He’s pretty sure Tony wouldn’t say no anyway. The stuffed bear falls to Tony’s feet fast enough to support it, at least, though the mug’s been set securely aside. 

Tony looks good holding her, that tension bleeding out of him as the seconds pass without incident. She’s so tiny, Clint figures he can see why the big guys around him worry she’ll be delicate, too, but as far as Clint’s concerned, they’re all worrying about nothing. She means enough to each of them that their strength tempers instinctively; they’re all far too aware of her while she’s around to forget and somehow hurt her. 

He’s had a crash course in that, though, had to get over himself those first sleepless nights. Everyone else, Dummy included, is working behind the curve. 

Clint listens for trouble from the other room while he’s tugging a clean shirt over his head and when he heads back for whatever serious business conversation Tony wants to have, he’s not surprised to find the pair of them standing pretty much the way he’d left them. 

Clint doesn’t have the heart to take her back. 

“So what’s up with Banner?” Clint asks when he’s settled himself in the overstuffed chair by his couch. Tony lowers himself gently, carefully down on the couch, looks relieved when he manages to sit down without disturbing her. Clint probably should have mentioned she can be pretty hard to disturb when she’s cuddling, so long as she feels safe. 

“He been around here much?” 

Clint doesn’t have to think about it, just shakes his head. “Once or twice lately. Not for long.” 

“You scare him off, Katniss?” 

“Think we might’ve, yeah.” 

Tony snorts. “And you’re all right with that?” 

“It is what it is.” Clint lifts a shoulder, tries to shrug it off. Bruce isn’t going anywhere, neither of them are; Clint has time to let things work out however they’re going to and no real energy to put into trying to change Bruce’s mind. It’s not good or anything, definitely not what Clint wants, but even having Dummy around to lend a shiny metal claw isn’t doing much more than giving Clint time to sleep and maybe shower. 

It’s certainly not giving Clint time to run Bruce and his issues down the way he wants. 

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard this week and Pep made me go to two board meetings and deal with engineering interns.” 

“Just leave it alone, Stark,” Clint hears himself say, flat and utterly unamused, and he knows when he says it that Tony won’t, Tony _can’t_ , that’s just not how Tony’s built. 

Still, a guy can hope. 

So when Tony draws himself up to his full height and narrows his eyes, the only real surprise is just how malevolent he looks. If Clint were still writing accurate, informative reports for Fury, there’s no way Tony wouldn’t be on some sort of future supervillains list already. 

“He’s pouting. He’s pining. There is _moping_ in my lab. I don’t care how you fix it, just get it done. Don’t make me fix it for you.” 

And much as Clint wants to blow Tony off, he can’t.

::

Since subtle’s not really working for him and the _slow and steady_ thing’s blown up so spectacularly, Clint figures it might be time to get obvious. Maybe Tony Stark levels of obvious, because while Clint would prefer not to make a complete asshole of himself here, it’s not like he doesn’t know how to make a scene.

Time for Luke to get his Chewie, he thinks; the only question left is: How?

::

Cornering Bruce while Flip’s being impossibly adorable isn’t all that hard. Clint invites Bruce over for what probably sounds like adult time, makes a point of giving Bruce the impression Flip will be with Dummy and thus safe from whatever anxiety-riddled bullshit Bruce has cooked up to convince himself he shouldn’t be around her.

Like he’s not her other Uncle, one of the voices she’s known the longest. Jesus.

::

“She’s so small,” Bruce says, hovering over her, fingers poised as though he means to touch. Clint looks up at him, tremendously amused. Flip’s on her back in the middle of Clint’s bed, tiny limbs waving restlessly as she looks around with that big-eyed curiosity of hers, and Clint’s supposed to be strapping on the Snugli thing but honestly, he gets distracted just watching her sometimes.

“Not that small anymore,” Clint says, feels like an expert in babies now or something because he can honestly say she’s getting bigger on him every day, growing up and heading towards being mobile. She’s in the six-month clothes now, needs the length, and he feels slightly less oversized and clumsy when he puts her tiny socks on her now. “You got urgent plans for science today, Brown Eyes?” 

Bruce blinks at him, owlish and sheepish. It’s so fucking adorable, Clint’s not sure it should be his life but whatever, somehow it is, and he’s not stupid enough not to hold on tight to it as long as he can. 

“Well, actually, I—” Bruce starts, obviously talking himself out of it, because if Bruce really had a pressing engagement, he’d have just said so. Bruce only gets reluctant about science when he’s using it as avoidance. 

“Because we’re going to the park for a while and maybe Times Square if somebody’s good. Aren’t we, Flip?” Clint sneaks a finger down to brush the back of her hand. She’s so smart already, got such quick reflexes; her fingers are grasping, clutching at nothing instinctively. “Maybe even F.A.O. Schwartz if we’ve got time.” 

Bruce is frowning when Clint looks back up at him, soft and bemused. “The park and the toy store I get, though I think Pepper’s going to hurt you if you bring home anything else this month. You know how Tony gets. Times Square, though?” 

“She likes the lights.” Clint shrugs. Babies like lights and bright colors, he read that somewhere in his baby books, and Flip’s a born-and-bred New Yorker, not fussed by noise or crowds. “So, how about it? You up for a field trip, Doc?” 

And Clint knows it’s cheating to give Bruce the puppy eyes, to slip Bruce’s finger down for Flip to grasp, but whatever, Clint cheats and Clint wins. 

“You, uh, you don’t think that’s a bad idea?” 

He means the Other Guy. What Clint wants to say is that they’re going to have to deal with it sometime, Bruce can’t hide that side of himself forever, but he’s pretty sure Bruce won’t take that well. Instead Clint lays a hand over the small one Flip’s got curled around Bruce’s finger, angles himself up to nuzzle against Bruce’s jaw lightly. 

“I really don’t.” 

And while Bruce is thinking that through, Clint makes the nuzzle a kiss, touches Bruce’s stubbly jaw with his mouth and thinks this is as good as life gets. 

“Okay then,” Bruce decides, his thumb rubbing idly over Flip’s little hand. “Okay then, just the park.” 

And because that’s as good as Clint’s going to get this close to the lab, Clint pretends to believe it.

::

Getting Flip in and out of the Snugli without taking it off is a bitch, Clint knows this from experience, and one of the many benefits of having her strapped to _Clint_ really should be that she doesn’t need to leave for any of the things they do at the park regularly.

No, not even the baby swings. Clint avoids those completely with her, keeps a hand on her belly to soothe her when she gets excited. Flip’s too young for teeth or standing up on her own still but she packs a decent wallop when she gets going. It’s clear as shit to Clint who her family is. 

Bruce likes the walk, the air of the city and the way the world seems to melt away once they’re crossing the park lawn. They aren’t holding hands or anything because people are still assholes sometimes but they walk shoulder-to-shoulder, let their hips and elbows and shoulders brush as they move. 

It’s awesome. Clint’s life needs more moments like this, for sure. 

It’s mid-morning on a weekday and the park Clint and Flip like best doesn’t draw much of a tourist crowd, so they don’t have to wait long before they’ve got a pair of empty swings side-by-side. 

Bruce gives Clint an odd look when Clint skips the baby swings, heads straight for the black strap of rubber there for the bigger kids. 

“Isn’t she a bit young for those?” Bruce asks as Clint settles himself down on something roughly sized for 12-year-olds. 

“Nah,” Clint dismisses, tipping his head towards the other free one, giving Bruce a look until he settles, too. It’s simple enough to urge his swing into rocking, letting his feet drag so he won’t build momentum too fast, and Clint wraps an arm in the swing’s chain to anchor himself, keeps a hand on Flip’s Snugli so she’ll feel secure. “See?” Clint says, glancing over at Bruce, ducking his head close to hers so it’ll come from both of them. “She loves it. Flip’s a born flier, aren’t you, baby?” 

She laughs, bobbles a fist and kicks out in that way Clint just _knows_ is happy baby. 

Bruce looks soft. Achingly sweet, incredibly fond. There’s a shy smile playing over his mouth, warmth and affection in his dark eyes, and he looks very much like he’s trying to restrain both so he won’t encourage Clint to misbehave. 

As though there’s the slightest chance Clint’s going to do anything that might get her hurt. 

“So what now?” Bruce asks, which Clint finds endearing. 

“No mystery here, Brown Eyes. Now we swing.” 

Bruce looks wary, still not quite convinced, but Clint figures he’ll leave it alone until Bruce puts an actual question to him. One of the things he’s learned about his scientist over the years is that sometimes, Bruce just needs to run unfamiliar things through his big, genius brain before he can trust that he understands them. It’s pissed Clint off a few times that Bruce has so much trouble trusting good things in his life — no problems at all processing the bad shit, ever, but few things seem to baffle him quite like simple human affection — but Clint can be patient, Clint knows how to wait. 

It feels a bit like victory when Bruce starts swinging, too. 

Flip really does love it on the swings, which is why Clint makes a point of hitting up the park when he gets a chance and why Clint’s already given some thought to how young’s _too_ young to start teaching her tumbling, and for all her reserve when they’re just walking, she’s unabashedly enthusiastic about things she loves when she feels safe. He can’t swing too fast or too high yet without unsettling her but when his feet leave the ground for a moment, she waves her little fists and happy-baby-kicks like she’s trying to fly. 

As gravity sucks them back down, Clint curls around her, making silly noises for her and holding her tight, laughing with her and pressing his cheek into her hair. It’s really, really easy to get caught up in her and he does, easing them just a little higher with the next lift, surprising another blurt of sound out of her and dragging his feet to burn off momentum again. 

“You look good like that,” Bruce says, and Clint finds Bruce practically still beside him, just watching them both. 

“You look pretty good yourself.” The sun’s hitting Bruce’s hair, doing pretty things to the lines and angles of his face, turning the smudges of sleeplessness around his eyes and the lab rat shade of his skin into something that looks almost healthy. 

Bruce looks relaxed and quietly curious, which is pretty much the way Clint thinks Bruce should always look. 

“Parenthood suits you.” 

Clint’s okay with that thought but he’s not okay with the tinge of sadness to the words. He shrugs, rubs Flip’s belly as he slows them to a stop, lets them drift a little to keep her happy while he watches Bruce. 

“Gonna tell me what’s put that look on your face, Brown Eyes? Or should I start guessing?” Bruce hesitates, contemplates a lie or some sort of denial Clint’s just going to ignore. To keep things light, to not wreck the moment any more than necessary, Clint tries, “Because, you know, if I’m guessing, I’m starting with monkeys.” 

Bruce smiles thinly, doesn’t really mean it. “You’re a good father.” 

Clint shrugs again, ducks credit he can’t really claim. “Mostly, I lucked out with the kid but it’s not like I’m short stunning examples of what not to do.” 

Bruce gets that, but Bruce would: from what Clint’s heard of it, Bruce’s dad was the same sort of shithead Clint’s was, every bit as violent and every bit as drunk. _It wasn’t us_ , he wants to say, _it was absolutely them_ , but that’s not really a conversation they should be having in the park. 

Still, Bruce nods vaguely and looks away. “You ever want one of your own?” 

Ah, there it is, the mental minefield Clint’s walking. “I’ve got one,” he says, as evenly as he can. “Pretty freaking awesome one, at that. Can’t say I ever thought about it much until I had to but I don’t regret it, either, if that’s what you’re asking.” It’s not, not really, but Clint needs to be sure here before he soldiers on. “You ever think about it, Brown Eyes?” 

But he knows. Bruce wants this, he’s just holding himself back from it for reasons Clint isn’t quite sure how to combat effectively. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says, voice a little thick, memory or emotion or both. “Before...A long time ago. It seemed nice.” 

Bruce’s brittle little smile should break Clint’s heart but right now, it’s just encouraging. “It _is_ pretty awesome,” Clint confirms. “Not sure _nice_ is the word for it but yeah, it’s good.” 

“That’s good,” Bruce says, impossibly mildly. “That’s _nice_. You should have that.” Bruce’s gaze dips to Flip pointedly. “You both should.” 

“You, too,” Clint counters. “If you want it. If you want _us_. We don’t have to be a package deal if that’s not what you’re looking for but if it is, man, we can be.” 

“Clint,” Bruce says, roughly; he looks devastated, and Clint can’t be sure yet if that’s good or bad. 

Flip squirms again; Clint gives her his finger to clutch and lets their swing drift, wishes their swings were close enough to let him touch Bruce, maybe hold his hand to thumb his mouth, give him some sort of physical affection so Bruce won’t get lost in his own head. 

“Hey,” someone says, a stick of a kid with a sort of scrappy earnestness to him Clint recognizes. “You two gonna swing or what?” 

“What,” Clint decides, slipping off his swing and pulling Bruce from his, snapping a quick and jaunty salute at the kid as he leads Bruce away. 

Clint doesn’t stop walking until they’ve found themselves a nook of trees and bushes, enough privacy that he can turn on Bruce and do something about that quiet thoughtfulness that can’t be Bruce thinking good things about himself. 

“You gave in pretty easily back there,” Bruce says, watching Clint through his lashes. 

“Places to be, scientists to distract,” Clint dismisses. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, please don’t. Because we are having a moment here, I think, and I’m pretty sure it’s a good one, and you look like you want to brood right through it.” 

“I’m thinking I shouldn’t be around kids. I’m not…reliable.” 

Clint snorts. “You think I am?” 

Bruce stills like prey, wise-eyed and cautious. He looks afraid to move and so, so uncertain that Clint has to force himself relaxed for everybody’s sake; Flip’s too good at picking up Clint’s tension at times and the last thing Clint wants now is a tiny distraction. 

“You know what I did, Bruce. You know what I _do_. When I’m not here, hanging out in Stark Tower playing SuperNanny, you know what I am. You think _you_ ’re unreliable? I could kill you four ways with Flip’s Snugli -- no, shut up, I’d come close -- and it wouldn’t even be the worst thing I’d done. You think you’re too dangerous to be around her? Then so am I. Hell, so are all of us, Stark included, and most of us haven’t put nearly as much effort into keeping our control.” 

Bruce shakes his head and looks away, smiling bittersweet. “I’m not that controlled, Clint, trust me.” 

Stupid bastard probably doesn’t even realize what he’s said. Clint wants to melt right into him, drag his mouth up Bruce’s jaw and say the rest of this with touch. If he didn’t have Flip strapped to him, he probably would. 

He does, though, so he can’t. All he can do is look. 

“Dummy almost exploded her putting on a diaper. Tony turned her fucking canister off. Nat can’t even look at her and I take her to a _shooting range_ and you’re worried about _Hulk_?” Clint cannot possibly convey how ridiculous that is without showing Bruce security footage but he tries. “You know, when I say I want you in her life, I don’t just mean Brown Eyes the Scientist. Both of you, Bruce. All of you. I want all of you there. If you want to be. Just--” and he has to cup Bruce’s face then, has to step close and angle Flip carefully between them so she’ll have room to move, and because he holds Bruce’s gaze while he does, Bruce just stands still and lets him. Fuck, the trust Bruce puts in him is incredible, all the more amazing for his persistent lack of trust in himself. “Just don’t stay away unless you want to, Brown Eyes. There is no part of you I wouldn’t trust with my kid.” 

“And if the Other Guy’s not good with babies?” 

Clint can’t help the laughter bubbling; Bruce is wary, yeah, but he looks like he _wants_ to believe. “I think Hulk’s more scared he’ll hurt her than you are, actually. He freaks the fuck out until I promise him she’s safe. But when she’s bigger, he wants to watch movies with her and show her Dora the Explorer and have tea parties.” 

Bruce’s brow furrows. “Tea parties?” he repeats flatly. 

“I know, right?” Clint grins. Feels like if that’s the part Bruce is questioning, Clint might just be making progress. “He says _play_ but you know Tony’s going to turn her into a little princess by the time she’s walking and you’ve convinced Hulk tea is amazing, and maybe you don’t see him when he’s not all Smash-tastic but yeah, trust me, by the time Flip’s in school, Hulk’ll be a tiara-wearing tea party regular, for sure.” 

“Tea parties,” Bruce says again, sounds like it’s almost parsing, and then, “Tiaras?” like he’s pondering indignation on Hulk’s behalf, and Clint sweeps over Bruce’s cheekbone with his thumb. 

Clint pitches his voice conspiratorially. “Kinda looking forward to it, actually.” 

Bruce’s hand hovers over the back of Flip’s Snugli, a touch he still won’t let himself have, but it’s more than enough for Clint. He’s not the only one picturing Big Green in a tiara, and he’s not the only one who thinks it’s good. 

So maybe it’s not fair to hit Bruce hard when he’s got his guard down but, well, Clint’s in this thing to win. Fair doesn’t really factor into it. “You want to know how I know you won’t hurt her, Banner? Because you’re so fucking terrified you will.”


	6. epilogue

_three years later..._

“Movie, Daddy,” Flip says as she shuffles down the hall, moving as fast as her little legs will carry her in that costume. She’s got the hood down and a fray of yarn fringing down over her forehead but she looks up earnestly, all big eyes and plaintive concern, and because Clint knows that look -- they _all_ know that look -- he leans down to sweep her up. 

She fits a little awkwardly because her Boo suit is bulky but she throws her little flipper-arms around his neck and smushes her face into his cheek, his little monster’s version of a kiss. 

“Movie time, Daddy,” she says again, like maybe he’s forgotten. Despite the stress he’s been under all day, the way it feels like he’s spent a year tucked into Tony’s lab hovering around James’s canister, Clint feels himself relax a little. Just a little; even Flip in her Boo suit can’t take all the James-related panic away, but it helps. 

“I know, kiddo,” he says into her hood, mouth brushing the slick material Tony’d used to recreate her favorite Disney character. Boo’s not really a princess but neither is Flip. And there’ve been tea parties, he’s sure there have, but they’ve been more about popcorn and Monsters Inc than they have tiaras and imaginary cookies. 

Clint’s life is kind of awesome lately. He’s forgotten how stressful it is, waiting for a canister to hatch. 

Flip’s babbling at him, muffled by the Boo hood that’s fallen low and completely content to kick happily against his chest, still so inclined to squirm when she’s excited. Clint catches every other word, maybe, if that, but he knows when to make encouraging sounds now. 

Knows that even out here, taking a _breather_ , he’s still trying to hear what’s happening behind the lab door. 

Tony swears as the elevator dings, getting really creative as Flip’s erstwhile babysitter heads towards Clint with a look of bemusement that has no business on that face; Steve means well, definitely, but he’s still working out how to handle toddlers. It’s amusing as hell to watch. 

“You are out of position, soldier,” Steve says, pointing at Flip and trying so hard not to scare her the way she’s probably scared him. 

Flip giggles under her hood, kicks and squirms again. Clint’s used to it by now, has gotten good at hauling her back, but Steve’s still pretty freaked he’ll hurt her. Seriously, Clint needs to make a sign or something: every goddamned hero who’s come anywhere near her seems to think Flip’s made of porcelain, prone to breaking at the slightest thing. Like having Hulk as a movie buddy and Thor as a playground buddy shouldn’t put that shit to rest. 

“Barton, I’m sorry,” Steve says, so official and so, so formal. 

“Don’t worry about it, Cap,” Clint says as Steve gets close. The poor guy looks shaken. Probably looked up and found her missing and had to ask JARVIS where she’d gone. “Nothing here is going to hurt her.” 

Like Tony and Bruce haven’t gone on a child-proofing bender or two. For _science_. 

“It was irresponsible of me. I thought she was sleeping.” Cap looks so lost. 

“Kid’s got a little escape artist in her,” Clint reminds him. “And a little monster, right, Flip? We don’t really stand a chance.” 

Flip loves the little monster thing, has since she figured out Hulk’s her Pai, that the guy who plays the Sully -- _Kitty!_ \-- to her Boo is the same guy who reads her stories and makes her lunch. The escape artist thing, well, she loves doing it but probably doesn’t quite know what the words mean. At least she’s still small enough that all her real escapes are to find her parents, that they all take place under JARVIS’s -- and Dummy’s -- careful watch. 

Steve blows out a rough breath. “I _lost_ her, Barton. How can you be this calm about it?” 

Clint shrugs. “Experience?” 

“Right,” Steve says, shakier than Captain America should ever be. Then Steve’s gaze drifts to the lab door Clint’s been hovering near and Clint can see it wash over Steve’s face, what’s happening in there, why he offered to watch Flip in the first place. 

Steve’s taken it better than Natasha ever did, his tiny Hydra-made clone, but the only thing Steve’s felt ready to offer is a name. They’ve been over it repeatedly since Clint brought the canister home to Stark Tower and Clint knows Steve’s resolved; the best possible solution for everyone is to give Flip a brother, let Clint and Bruce raise this baby, too. Still, Steve’s a good guy and too fucking honorable for his own good and Clint can see it eating at him again. 

Steve’s got no interest in putting aside the shield and he can’t reconcile continuing the mission and being a child’s primary caregiver, but they’ve all been working on a compromise that suits everybody. Steve’s watching Flip to give Clint and Bruce time to welcome the new addition without trying to split their attention, sure, but he’s also doing it so maybe one day, he’ll be able to handle spending time alone with James. 

“How’s it going in there?” Steve asks, tight and quiet. 

“It’s going.” Clint won’t mention how small and pale James is, how much his vitals lately have worried Bruce, and he won’t mention the canister failure that scared Tony into trying to break him out early. James is going to be fine, Clint knows it; the kid’s got the best minds in the world in his corner and from what Bruce has said, the science is on their side. All Steve can do now is worry more about things he can’t help. “Believe me, they’d tell me if it wasn’t.” 

Steve nods, looks like he doesn’t really believe it’s going _well_. 

“What’s _going_?” Flip asks, impatient and trying so hard not to let it show. “It’s movie time, Daddy. Watch with me?” 

“Would if I could, kiddo, you know that, but I promised Pai I’d stick around down here in case him and Uncle Tony need help with the baby.” Clint knows his kid, though; he knows exactly what buttons to hit to give Steve an easier time of it, so he does. “I bet Uncle Steve would watch it with you, though.” 

“No,” she says, flustered with confusion. She watches Monsters Inc with her Dad and her Pai, watches Wall-E with her Dummy and watches her dragon movie with her Thor, watches Iron Giant with her Tony and hides her face in his shirt when it’s scary. She doesn’t have a movie for Steve yet and that, Clint knows, is tricky business for her. 

“I bet he’d like it,” Clint tells her very seriously. “You think he’d be scared of Randall?” Clint looks up at Steve pointedly, tries to get across the importance of him at least pretending he is. As it stands now, Randall is the scariest thing in her life. “I think he would.” 

Steve sort of boggles as he catches on but he’s sharp enough to muster up a brave face for her when she nods decisively. “It’s okay,” she tells Steve solemnly. “I’ll keep you safe.” 

Then Clint’s kissing Flip’s forehead, nosing in under her Boo hood to do it, and setting her back on her feet, watching her take Steve’s hand and walk back towards the elevators, already babbling at him happily about her movie as she goes. 

Steve looks a bit dazed when he’s in the elevator but Clint’s pretty sure he sees Steve smiling a little, trying to keep up. 

Christ, Clint loves his kid. _Kids_ , he thinks, and glances back at the door. Tony’s stopped swearing and Clint thinks he hears a familiar hiss, and who knows how long later, Tony’s flushed and sweaty and tired at the door, a slow, sleepy grin spreading and something warm and soft in his eyes. 

“Go on in, Pop,” Tony says with a jerk of his head. “Congratulations, it’s a boy.” 

And when Clint steps into the lab that’s been James’s home the past six months, he finds Bruce sitting on the edge of his desk, a bundle of baby and blankets in his arms, head ducked low like there’s nothing else in his world. 

“Hey there, little guy,” Bruce is saying as Clint draws close, and because Clint recognizes the moment, the tone and the pose, he hangs back to let them have it. “Hi, James. I’m your Pai, buddy, and I’ve been waiting to meet you for a long time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Coulson dies. Hydra's growing infant clones; references to experimentation on said clones and implied unnamed infant clone death.


End file.
